EcoLur
Banks don’t allocate loans to Artanish villagers, Gegharkounik Region, as they told EcoLur. Banks allocate loans only to animal owners, while houses in Artanish are not attractive for them. “The people in the village are able to work, but many of them don’t have money to buy cattle, so people can’t overcome this problem and leave the country,” said Artanish Deputy Village Head Romela Ghulyan. Dealing with agriculture is costly high for Artanish villagers: no machinery, high fees in parallel with hail and drought. “Ploughing and sowing costs really high, we need at least 20,000 AMD to plough 1 hectare of land. Then it can be destroyed by the hail… No tractors and equipment… To cut short, a villagers’ life is very hard. When we way we can live, the problem is how? I worked for 47 years, but today my pension is 42,000 AMD….Today because of mass emigration of youth we won’t have any soldiers to defend the borders in 20 years,” said villagers.
Artanish marlstone mine developed by “Mika-Cement” Company mitigates to a certain extent the social state of Artanish villagers. Under Romela Ghulyan, only 43 out of 758 are employed at Artanish mine, and the villagers are pleased with it. The only problem is dust, which is mitigated with water. Nevertheless, on 22 February 2013 “Artanish Marlstone Mine” project was submitted for public discussion, under which only 18 villagers will be employed. During the public discussion of the mine “Mika-Cement” Company General Director Naira Martirosyan said that the production output had reduced. “Several years ago we used to mine 200,000 tons, now, as a matter of fact, it had reduced double… Currently we are limited with our domestic market and we can’t export the cement, as Armenia has no railway communications abroad, we can transport it to Georgian railways, them to the sea, then shipping. Railway fees have gone up significantly and we couldn’t afford it any longer, as the production output has reduced,” Naira Martirosyan said.
Whether cement plants and mines will continue operating if gas price goes up is a big problem. In this case it becomes clear why banks are not interested in Artanish houses: if there are proper conditions for living, who needs these houses? Watch details in the video.
May 24, 2013 at 16:17