In the recent election for mayor of the village of Kachachkut in the Lori Marz, there were 290 voters and 4 candidates.
21-year old Siramarg Mkhitaryan, a resident of the Sanahin district of Alaverdi, had her 6-month pregnancy terminated at the city's maternity hospital in October.
Mayoral elections are to be held on May 8 th in Alaverdi. As expected, the campaign has been tense.
The city council of Alaverdi has officially decided to limit journalists' right to obtain information. At a December 1, 2004 session presided over by mayor Saribek Ohanyan, the question of allowing journalists to film the meeting was put to a vote.
On April 15, 2004 a pig belonging to Alaverdi resident Samvel Tsatinyan was electrocuted while strolling in the backyard of Building # 2E of the city's Sanahin district.
The Sadakhlo bazaar is just over the Georgian border. The gates on the Armenian side wouldn't open until 8 a.m., but the parking lots in the Armenian village of Bagratashen were already full the night before.
Every week, from two to three thousand people cross the Armenian border at Bagratashen, to do their buying and selling at the Sadkhlo bazaar. Alongside the trade outlets, there are about twenty restaurants in this Azeri- populated Georgian village, where every week, in addition to food and drink, a couple dozen Armenian girls are sold as well.
Workers from three sections of the Metal Prince Company’s Shamlugh mine have been on strike for a month now, demanding eights months’ overdue wages. Last year, twelve miners took their problem to court, and between February and July, the Alaverdi Court of First Instance found for four of them. One of these verdicts has been appealed, and the other three have yet to be carried out.
In recent years the number of births in Alaverdi has decreased, but birth defects, abnormal pregnancies and infertility are on the rise.