In February of this year, when a memorandum was signed i between the ROA Ministry of Nature Protection and  “Rosatom”, the Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation, regarding cooperative geological exploration, production and reprocessing in the Armenian uranium sector, stories linked to the uranium mine, long since forgotten, began to resurface in Lernadzor.

Aleksei Hakobyan, a 75 year-old Lernadzor resident remembers the year when the Russian geologists came to the village. His recollections perfectly reflect the atmosphere of secrecy that dominated during those years.

Mr. Hakobyan recounts, “We didn’t know anything. All I remember is after the Russians opened the mine, one or a few of them died. After that, in the course of one night, the mine opening was plugged up with cement. They took the corpses back to Moscow and everything came to an end.”

The countless retelling of this story has instilled fear into the hearts of residents whenever uranium is mentioned. Suffice to say, no one knows what actually happened back then and what caused the death of the geologists.

Sergey Kiriyenko, the President of “Rosatom”, shed some light on the history of the Syunik uranium mine at the memorandum signing ceremony when he stated that the 1970’s Russian exploration team uncovered a mine containing some 30,000 tons of uranium. In the uranium sector, this is considered to be a medium-sized mine.

In April, a few months after the memorandum signing, a contract was penned between the ROA Ministry of Nature protection and the Russian mining company “ARMZ Uranium Holding” to take preparatory steps towards joint research and operation of uranium mines in Armenia.

At the time ROA Minister of Nature Protection, Aram Harutyunyan, stated that exploratory work would begin by September of this year. No such work however has begun in Lernadzor as yet.

The house of Lernadzor Mayor Stepan Petrosyan is located a stone’s throw away from the mine. He is building a new home and every time he hears reports in the media regarding the inter-governmental contracts and memorandums being signed, he’s thrown into a state of confusion.

Mayor Petrosyan relates that, “ Officially, they tell me nothing whilst the area of exploration includes the villages of Lernadzor, Poukhrut and Katnarat and those lands belong to the community of Lernadzor. I haven’t seen one researcher till now.”

Environmentalists and village residents are opposed to the operation of the mine. Residents are fearful of uranium, whatever the case, while environmental activists oppose the opening of yet another mine in Syunik, a Marz (Region) that is already home to many of the largest mining operations in Armenia (Kajaran, Kapan, Agarak) and the largest tailing dams (Artzvanik, Voghtchi, Darazami, Geghanoush).

The rise in international market prices is based on the factor of changing approaches regarding the use of nuclear energy. Even energy rich nations like Iran and the United Arab Emirates are developing plans to harness nuclear energy. Even Azerbaijan, already thinking about its long-term energy security, has expressed a desire to build a nuclear power plant in preparation for the day when its oil and gas reserves are drawn down. Armenia’s current atomic power plant will operate till 2016v and the proposed new one will demand much more raw material in order to meet the growing energy demands of the country. (According to the forecasts of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources the energy demand of Armenian in 2025 will equal about 10 billion kilowatts per hour.)

The Russian and Armenian partners in the uranium project claim that with the implementation of modern technologies, any environmental damage will be minimal.

Sergey Grigorian, a member of Armenia’s National Academy of Sciences, is the author of two research papers on the location and operation of concealed uranium mines. The Academician states that uranium doesn’t pose a threat in the exploratory phase and only gives off radiation after being enriched.

Official sources have repeatedly claimed that uranium enrichment will not occur in Armenia. The Armenian party in the uranium project has already expressed a readiness to have the exported uranium processed at the Angarsk Enrichment Plant, a joint Russian-Kazakhstan venture constructed in 2007.