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Yeranuhi Soghoyan

Will Tatev Cable Car Spur Local Economy?

Some Residents Warn of Environmental Degradation; Others See Boon to Tourism

You would think that the constant complaints of local Syunik residents and tourists converging on the area regarding the poor state of the road leading to the Tatev Monastery were coming to an end.

Centuries ago, the faithful and curious made their way to the famous religious site on donkey or by foot. Today, ten years into the 21st century, modern pilgrims not only can make the trip by car but even will be provided the alternative of arriving from on high, through the air. This last option sounds like something out of a fairy tale or someone’s overactive imagination. It would appear that we Armenians have made it into the Guinness World Book of Records for two feats. The first being the construction of the world’s longest cable car. The second is that there is no other ancient religious site in the world that can be reached by such a transportation mode. Great, you’d say. Here’s something all Armenians can take pride in. Not so fast. Not everyone shares such enthusiasm for the Tatev cable car.

Kebab joints will spring up like mushrooms

“Just wait. Pretty soon they’ll be building kebab joints on the slopes of these forests. They’ll start to cut down trees to build. The surrounding environment will be spoilt,” says concerned Goris resident Hamlet Martirosyan. “We don’t know whether to be glad or sad about the cable car, especially since they say the price for a ride won’t be cheap. It looks as if the local folk will be going to Tatev in the traditional way. And those eating and drinking establishments will crop up like mushrooms all around the monastery. The concept of a holy site will be corrupted. They say that the cable car is being built to spur tourism. Give me a break. Couldn’t they have achieved the same thing by fixing the roads around here? On the one hand it’s encouraging that the government is paying attention to regional development, but there’s still the unanswered question as to who will monitor the place to make sure the negatives I pointed out won’t happen.”

 At first, the idea of the world’s longest cable car really excited residents of the five communities in the Goris region. Village residents weighed their losses and gains in terms of selling their produce. In Goris, the hope is that the cable car will help incentivize the hotel business, even though they are concerned that the road to Tatev bypasses the town. A tourist spending a day or two at the religious site perhaps might not want to return to Goris for the night, preferring to bed down in the villages of Tatev or Halidzor. In fact, 8 houses in Tatev have already been chosen to serve as mini guest homes. The neighboring villages of Halidzor and Shinouhayr are thinking of doing the same. This has gotten business people in Goris to anxiously scratch their heads. But you’ll still find optimists within their ranks.

Goris residents turn their homes into guest houses

Sevada Malintsyan, owner of the Andranik guest house in Goris is preparing to build an additional three rooms in the courtyard. He moved on the idea to convert his private house into a guest house this past August and he has no regrets. “If you travelled to Goris just a few years ago, there wasn’t a hotel around,” says Sevada. “To be honest, people around here just didn’t believe such a business would work. An Armenian from Iran came and built the first hotel. Afterwards, local folk started to think along the same lines.” Sevada confesses that he tried his hand at several other businesses and that the guest house concept never crossed his mind. He had previously been a furniture maker. Sat the time, one or two families started to rent out rooms to tourists, offering a cozy family environment and reasonable prices. The foreign tourists liked what they found. “Well, I saw the benefits to this type of business and decided to try my hand at it,” Sevada explains. “Now, there are about 7-8 guest houses in Goris. They say the cable car will bring in even more tourists, so I decided to build more rooms.”

Local villages also get facelift

Sevada doesn’t believe that improvements in Shinouhayr or Halidzor will negatively impact on his business. “A visitor to Goris always comes back,” he states with confidence. “If my customers leave here satisfied just once they’ll come back. They won’t stay anywhere else.” People from Goris told me that the Shinouhayr villagers have been saved. I couldn’t quite make out if they were actually glad or a wee bit jealous when making the remark. “If it weren’t for the cable car, the streets wouldn’t have been paved in the village,” they pointed out. The authorities proposed to home owners on the right side of the main road through Shinouhayr that their exterior walls abutting the street be constructed in a similar style. Valery Haroutyunyan took it upon himself to construct the outer wall in the new style. He says that expert stone masons were called in to do the work on the other houses. “They told us to build walls and that’s what we did,” laughs Valery. “They supplied the stones and all. Tiles will be affixed to the stone.” Valery estimates that he will receive 100,000 AMD for the one month’s work. The benefit will be two-fold; money and a lovely wall. In this part of the village, the houses are about 10-15 from the street. The former barbwire fences were a pretty ugly sight. Mayor Smbat Yeremyan suggested that the walls be uniform. The suggestion was supported by the National Competitive Fund and the Ministry for Territorial Administration. “I must confess that we come out as winners,” said the mayor of the largest village in Syunik. “We couldn’t have financed capital improvements like this with our own budget. Up till 2005, we didn’t even have a budget to speak of; no money was being collected. Last year, our budgetary performance was around 75% and we hope to hit 90% this year. Most of the labor force is made up of Shinouhayr residents, who are paid 3,000-4,000 a day. Local craftsmen are also working, especially stone masons. They get 2,000 per meter.”

Residents banking on growing number of tourists

After independence, most of the 2,987 residents of the village have been engaged in farming and gardening. During the Soviet era, there was a factory producing rubber shoes that employed 800-900. Most families had 1 or 2 members working there. Their dream is that the cable car and the expected rise in tourism will return the village to its former glory. “Our expectations are great,” says Mayor Yeremyan, not hiding his enthusiasm. “We anticipate much progress on the tourism front and the village is already abuzz with the construction of the cable car. Work hasn’t finished, but we sense that the number of tourists will increase.” A bread oven is being built on the outskirts of the village so that tourists can get a taste of lavash (Armenian flat bread). A small open-air market used to operate next to the municipal building, and it is being renovated so that residents can sell their wares from a central location and not randomly on the streets. Mayor Yeremyan has also raised the matter of street lighting with the government. “Four years ago, with local funds, we were able to get lighting to about 70% of the community. But the road needs lighting from end to end. That’s another problem I will have to raise with Artashes Bakhshyan, Deputy Minister for Territorial Governance.” I asked the Mayor of Shinouhayr how residents of the surrounding villages would be able to avail themselves of the cable car. It turns out that the community heads were asked to turn in a list of residents. The mayors were informed that the plan was to allow residents of Shinouhayr, Halidzor, Tatev, Svarants and Khot to ride the cable car for free. “Each person can take one free ride per day,” Mayor Yeremyan said. “Personal data from a person’s passport gets filed into the computer. You won’t need a ticket or pass.” I ask the mayor what those suffering from a fear of heights will do, waiting for him to point to the road. “I get it, you’re one of those people who can’t stand high places, right?” he laughs. “We make a pretty good mulberry vodka around her. All it takes is a 100 gram shot to still your nerves. You know, to give you a bit of backbone. This way you’ll be able to see Tatev from the sky; in all its splendor.”

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