The village of Garnakar is located in Nagorno Karabakh's Martakert region, near the road to Gantzasar. It is a small village. Only 80 people live here, although the village mayor, Gagik Zakharyan, says there are nearly 160 registered residents. People are registered in the village but they don't live here, as there is no work in the village and few amenities. To increase the number of people actually living here, Zakharyan invited two families with many children from Yerevan. One of these is Anush, her husband, and their eight children, who traveled the Yerevan-Vardenis-Karvachar road to arrive at last arrive in Garnakar.

When we asked Anush's oldest son Artyom why the family chose this village, he replied, "In Garnakar there is a forest, river, and animals but in Yerevan there is nothing. No forest, no river, no animals."

The government helped build a house for the family. They have already adapted to life in the village and acquired their own livestock. Anush spoke with pride of her achievements so far: "We have chickens, a turkey, and goats. This year our goat had not one but three kids. So, that's how it is, I keep them, and they increase, they multiply."

When we asked Anush whether it's hard to take care of eight children, she smiled and said no, she is waiting for the ninth. The money from the government and her husband's salary don't add up to much, but they don't complain. They ask for very little. "I'd like a cow, so I could provide my kids with milk," Anush said.

There are eight schoolchildren in Garnakar, four of whom are Anush's. The others are from another family from Armenia who moved here five years ago. Ramela Balasanyan, the school principal and elementary teacher explained that the school was reopened thanks to the efforts of the village mayor. "There wouldn't be a school if the settlers from Armenia hadn't come."

The building the children study in can hardly be called a school. Since there are so few children, the government won't build a new building, but they promised to rebuild the old one. "We accept that," the principal said. "Even in these ruins, all we need is children to teach and new families to move here. Our government is new; it wouldn't be fair to ask a lot of it."

Balasanyan thinks that a villager should improve his life with his own means, without waiting from help from somewhere else. This belief is confirmed by 25-year-old Levon, a beekeeper. "That's my job. I make a living taking care of the bees. For instance this year it's been very good. On a good year I make one-and-a-half tons of honey," he said.

The people in Garnakar are hard-working and the land is fertile. There is a lot of opportunity to develop agriculture in the village, but the market is far away, which hinders development. "If we had a small produce factory, people would collect berries and sell them, and keep bees and sell the honey and there would be new jobs for the people," Mayor Zakharyan said.

Of the half of the population that has left the village to find work elsewhere he said, "They are registered here but in reality they live and work in Stepanakert, Yerevan, and elsewhere." Zakharyan believes that if things don't change for the better, the rest of the young people will leave too. However, if there are improvements, most of those who have left will return. He wants the village to be included in Nagorno Karabakh's repopulation program, so that "the village lives and survives; otherwise in fifteen years you might not find anybody here."

For the Karabakh government, however, the first priority is villages that have been completely abandoned. This approach may be correct, but it has its drawbacks, since in the process of repopulating abandoned villages other living villages like Garnakar may die. Meanwhile, the village mayor hopes that the people who settle here will bond with the land and become full members of the community.

When we asked Anush, a mother of eight, about the possibility of renewed military action in Karabakh she smiled and replied, "I'm not afraid. We'll do the same as other people here. Whatever happens, let the same thing happen to us, there's no difference. If there's a war tomorrow, won't my boys come here to fight? Isn't it the same? What's the difference?"

While the mother is denying the artificially-created differences between Armenia and Karabakh, her oldest son Artyom continues his recitation of the advantages of living here: "Goats, sheep, cows, donkeys, horses and chickens."