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“OUTGOING WORKERS” WAITING FOR THE CALL

Regions


The Darpas district of the Lori Marz with its 2300 inhabitants faces many issues the biggest of them being unemployment and forecasts say that it may intensify in the spring.


“The heads of nearly 100 families used to go abroad to work and the rest of the families received help from their relatives living abroad. This year is going to be very bad,” says village head Hamlet Avagyan.


“People with hope to leave don’t hope anymore…the global economic downturn has a great impact.”


Two of Andrey Aslanyan’s sons have been leaving for Russia for the past three to four years and Andrey says that they were earning enough.


“They couldn’t make more than 100-1500 drams here. They used to go in February and come back in December,” says Aslanyan adding that their family lives under one roof and working in Russia is a chance to have one of my sons leave. “We started building a house, but if they can’t leave this year, it will remain incomplete. The person who promised them jobs said that he would call them, but they are still waiting for the call.”


Armen, 30, says that finding a job in Russia now poses difficulties.


“If I go there and can’t find a job, I will come back,” says Armen.


The village head sees construction of the kindergarten that has reached the halfway mark as a way to minimize the rise of unemployment in the spring, but he says that he can’t change the situation completely.


The construction of the first floor of the kindergarten was completed with the district’s budget and the rest, according to the village head, is scheduled to complete with help from the social investments fund. The district hasn’t had a kindergarten since the 1988 earthquake. Some parents take their kids to the kindergartens located in Vanadzor, while many stay home.


Agriculture and cattle-breeding are underdeveloped in the village and according to villagers the reasons behind that are objective.


“The district lacks the technical equipment and we are not able to complete the work on time,” say villagers.


Gayane Sargsyan


Vanadzor