The city of Kajaran in the Syunik Marz experiences an "earthquake" measuring 3.0-4.0 on the Richter scale three to four times a week. It always happens at the same time- between 4:45 and 5:00 p.m. That's when workers at the Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Plant conduct explosions in the open mines to extract ore for processing. The plant's open mine is about ten kilometers outside of Kajaran, but the explosions there can be felt all throughout the town and in outlying villages. They don't just shake the houses; they raise a huge cloud of dust over the area.

"We're used to the explosions by now. At first, we used to get startled and scared each time. Now, we get up and calmly rearrange whatever we may have put on our shelves, so that nothing falls down," said 62-year old Ofik, a resident of Kajaran. "But the dust that rises up and comes and settles over the city is another matter; we breathe in that air. We work with all sorts of waste material, we drink contaminated water. The city got a new graveyard a year ago, and by the end of the year it was already full." Ofik's son works at the mine, and has developed a serious stomach disease.

The workers at the plant are far worse off. But they are unwilling to talk about their health for one simple reason - they are afraid of losing their jobs, and thereby condemning their families to poverty.

"The health of the workers at the plant is at serious risk, but nobody dares complain for fear of being fired. We work in a plant where there is little oxygen, and a large amount of dust and radiation. Everyone's respiratory system is in horrible shape. The plant does only partial filtration, so it's not just the workers who are harmed - it's the other residents as well," said 24-year old Hayk, a metalworker at the plant, (the names of the workers at the plant and the last names of residents of Kajaran have been changed to protect their identity).

Grenik Hambardzumyan, head of the plant's technical department, assured us that neither workers nor local residents faced any health problems. "All our workers are in excellent health. Can't you see how fresh they look? We provide them with special food, and make sure they have milk. I've been working here for so many years - do you see anything wrong with me?" he asked.

The workers maintain that such special treatment is a thing of the past. "What milk? We don't even have masks to protect ourselves from the dust. Dirt and dust enter get into our mouths, and when we spit, it's all black," said 50-year-old Valeri. Molybdenum dust is known to affect the reproductive organs first of all, especially in males.

"Forgive me for saying so, but a man turns impotent after 30 years of age here," said 50-year old Nina, whose son works at the plant. "They all suffer from infertility, especially the plant workers. A majority of the women have uterine tumors. Even when they're young, they can't have children anymore, because they have to have hysterectomies. There are also many cancer patients."

Even Grenik Hambardzumyan did not deny that molybdenum had this effect. "Do you think I don't know how the male reproductive organs are affected by molybdenum? Besides that, the level of radiation is particularly high at the mine and the plant. That is why I did everything I could to make sure that I ended up with more of an office job, and moved up from a regular laborer to technical head," he explained.

Lernik Davtyan, an architectural engineer, also admitted to the high levels of radiation in the region. He was a member of an ecological commission set up by the ANM in the 1980s and studied the environment in Kajaran. "We used moss to study the situation, because it accumulates radiation more than anything else. There were places where the levels of radiation were off the scale. I collected samples and sent them to France for analysis. They replied, saying that the moss samples contained a ' Chernobyl cocktail' - a dangerous mix of radioactive material," Davtyan said.

The City and Industrial Life of Kajaran

Kajaran, 346 kilometers from Yerevan, is one of seven cities in the Syunik Marz. It has a total area of 270 hectares. Kajaran is famous for its molybdenum mines and its copper and molybdenum plant (the Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Plant, Closed-Stock Company - ZCMP). The Republic of Armenia boasts 7.6% of the molybdenum reserves of the world, 90% of which belong to the Zangezur Plant. The mines at Kajaran are famous not just for their size, but also for the percentage of molybdenum contained in the ores there.

"60-65% of the city's population has a well-paid job thanks to the plant," said the mayor of Kajaran, Vardan Gevorkyan. "In Soviet times, the plant had 1,600 employees. Today, it employs 2,800 people. Thanks to the plant, all social problems are considered to be solved in Kajaran. Around 450-500 million drams circulate within Kajaran every month. That comes to about 50,000 drams per capita."

The plant was established in 1951. Around one million tons of ore was extracted by 1957. By 1989, more than nine million tons had been extracted. However, work was more or less suspended in 1992-93. Since 1994, there has been a regular increase in production at the plant.

Table 1. Ore Extraction from 1994 to 2004

Year	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Ore (thousands of tons)	1559	2721	3460	3819	5418	6325	7351	8067	8295	8424	8563

Table 2. Value of Production from 1994 to 2004

Year	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Value (millions of drams)	1722	6979	4770	5867	8082	8600	12159	14579	18818	27400	65529

 In December 2004, a contract was signed for the sale of ZCMP. The plant was sold for 132 million dollars. 60% of the shares were sold to a German company, Chronimet, 15% went to Pure Iron, a factory in Yerevan, 12.5% to Zangezur Mining (whose president, Maxim Hakobyan, is the current director of ZCMP), and 12.5% to the Armenian Molybdenum Production enterprise.

Director Maxim Hakobyan told us that the fourth stage in the development of the plant, iinitiated in 2005. "The fourth stage has now begun - this is the increase of production volume by 15%; the percentage of extraction of molybdenum and copper from the ores is going to be increased. In the coming years, production volume will almost double," he noted.

It is clear that an increase in production will lead to all sorts of ecological problems, something Arthur Ashughyan, Head of the Department of Mining and Natural Resource Economics at the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, did not deny. "Of course, ecological problems will come up as the volume of production there is increased. The environmental scene at Kajaran will change, the hills will become level with the city, there might even be a need to relocate the residents. But we would become leaders in molybdenum production in the world. You might call that inhuman, but there is no other way to make a profit in business," he said.

But Climent Hakobyan, head of the Kapan Laboratory of Metallurgy and Mine Enrichment, believes that increased production could have tragic consequences. "If the mine is exploited at a rate greater than today, then ecological catastrophes are imminent," he warned. "That means that there will be even more waste and refuse, there will be more air and water pollution. In the past, they would at least use explosives that would release fewer pollutants into the atmosphere. But now they use cheaper material, and these pollutants are accumulating in the city's air. Besides that, smelting has led to an increase in sulfates in the air, which damages the respiratory system of the people who live here", he explained.

to be continued

Photographer - Arthur Torosyan