Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
June 25 2009
GLOBAL CRISIS SQUEEZES LIFE FROM ARMENIA BORDER TOWN
The global recession has ended a brief era of prosperity and left most
people without jobs.
By Sara Khojoian
In the town of Meghri, people can’t remember the last time a
government official came to see how they live and to offer help. `They
come only on the eve of elections,’ one person said.
Though situated in the heart of Armenia’s mining region, Meghri, near
the Iranian border and nearly 400 kilometres from the capital Yerevan,
never had any industry or factories itself.
Karine Galstian, who gave birth to her second child only a month ago,
is desperate to leave as soon as she can, because she sees no future
for her children in Meghri.
She, her husband and two children, live off his monthly earnings as an
electrician of about 65,000 drams (175 US dollars). `We also have a
patch of land but we still only barely scrape a living,’ said
Galstian.
`I want to leave this place, as I see no future for my boys
here. There is no hospital, not even a proper doctor.
`They could have created jobs here, but the crisis took away the ones
that once existed.’
Galstian knows what she is talking about. Her brother recently joined
the growing ranks of the town’s unemployed.
The riverside town of 4,500, ringed by mountains in the Syunik region,
is visibly crumbling under the weight of the fallout from the world
economic downturn.
Most locals worked at the two nearby complexes, a copper and
molybdenum factory in the town of Agarak, a few kms away, and at the
local gold processing plant based at Lichkvaz-Tey and Terterasar.
These two firms once employed more than 600 staff in total, and while
they did, the life of thousands of Meghri residents ` relatives of
those 600 workers ` improved.
Sirun Sargsyan recalls how jobs in the plants revitalised their remote
community, `Seven years ago, we had only one newly-wed couple in the
town to prepare gifts for, while this year we had 32.’
But while life for most residents of Meghri improved for several
years, in the last few months it has turned into a bitter struggle for
survival.
The first reports spread about the possible closure of operations in
the mines of Lichkvaz-Tey and Terterasar in spring 2008. Then, in
September 2008, the management of Tamaya Resources Ltd, the Australian
company that owns the plant, decided to halt the work.
Anthony Ehlers, a representative of the company, told IWPR that the
global economic crisis had made it difficult for Tamaya to attract the
outside investment it still needed. For now, the ultimate fate of the
mines remains unknown.
Work at the mines was suspended on June 1, 2008, and in August 2008
the last of the 350-strong labour force ` the guards and drivers `
were sent home on leave.
Sergey Tarverdian, a company driver, was one of the last to go. `We
barely eke out a living,’ Tarverdian lamented. `There is nothing in
Meghri. Nobody cares about us.’
Meanwhile the copper combine at Agarak ceased operations in November
2008 and 250 more workers were suspended.
Geopromining Gold Ltd, owners of the plant, in February and again on
June 19, announced that the plant would resume production but few
people in Meghri have faith in that.
Sergey Hayrapetian, mayor of the town, says the crisis facing his
community can only be solved with more active intervention by the
state.
`The town budget for this year is simply unrealistic. We were planning
to raise about 34 million drams in taxes, but I don’t think we will
manage this because the number of unemployed people keeps growing,’
Hayrapetian said.
`We have a few small wine producers here, and two private businessmen
are producing dried fruits, but they don’t provide work for more than
30 people.’
Meghri residents will have to rely on their own fruit and vegetable
harvest to generate some cash if the gold mines and the copper combine
do not restart.
But they face another problem with a lack of cold storage
facilities. `We’ve been planning to set up a refrigeration system so
we can buy fruit from country farmers [at harvest time] and store it
until winter, when we can sell the fruit for a higher price,’
Hayrapetian said.
But they need money for that ` money they don’t have.
For now, the local cannery buys the crops that generate the town’s
only income at rock-bottom prices. Only 20 people work in the cannery
in winter, and 50 in summer.
`The fruits in Meghri are something special,’ said Melsida
Baghdasarian. `But who cares? Their sale price in Kapan [the regional
capital] is very low but to drive 400 kilometres to sell them in
Yerevan would cost us a lot, so we’re better off throwing them away
than going there.
`That’s why we have to give them to the cannery for below the real
price.’
Karine Karapetian, assistant at a store in Meghri, says the economic
downturn has left so many people in debt that her boss has forbidden
them to sell anything on credit.
Various customers already owe the store around 1,000 dollars. `Since
January, I don’t give anyone anything on loan,’ Karapetian said.
`We used to do it when people were sure to receive their monthly
salaries and could pay their debts, but now I can’t even manage to
collect the debts that had accumulated before January.
`I pity them; many people don’t know how to get by. They come and ask
for bread and sometimes I think I should give it to them ` but then I
realise that they have nothing to pay for it with.’
Ashot Qalashian, the deputy mayor, says one way out of the current
impasse would be for the government to act on pledges contained in a
decision made in 2000, giving Meghri so-called border zone status. In
theory, this granted it access to certain privileges, exemptions and
government programmes.
`But until now the [programmes] to create jobs, and conditions for the
development of small and medium sized business and storage of
agricultural goods have stayed on paper,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Artyom Sargsyan, of the department of information for
Syunik municipality, said the crisis in Meghri was not even mentioned
at a meeting in March during President Serzh Sargsyan’s visit to
Syunik.
Repairs to the local house of culture and plans to build a new
irrigation system dominated the discussion instead.
In Meghri, local people still wait for someone in authority to take
their problems more seriously. According to jobless ex-driver Sergey
Tarverdian, `We simply live in the hope that there will one day be
light at the end of the tunnel.’
Sara Khojoian is a journalist from Armenianow.com, and a participant
in IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism Network.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress