The reason we went to thevillageofNorabakof the Gegharkunik Marz was the alarm sounded by Svetlana Arustamova, the subject of a recent article.

After seeing the film “Ruined Souls: Refugees in the Gegharkunik Marz Fifteen Years Later”, commissioned last year by the Gegharkunik branch of the Sakharov Human Rights Fund, a woman from Yerevan decided to help Svetlana by paying her electricity bill. And though Svetlana received a letter from her benefactor with payment receipts for December and January, she was forced to pay once again for the electricity she had used during those months.

The Electricity Network of Armenia CJSC has a computerized payment system, and a payment made inYerevanshould immediately appear in Vardenis.

Whether the double charge was a result of carelessness or premeditation will certainly come to light eventually, and we will follow the developments to make sure that Svetlana gets her money back. This will, perhaps, make some sort of amends, but life for the residents of Norabak, mainly refugees, is unlikely to approach even the most rudimentary human standards if what has been the reality in this isolated village for the last fifteen years continues.

On March 4, 2007 an extraordinary election of the head of the village administration is scheduled to take place in Norabak. Former village head Samvel Karapetyan, who had held this position for thirteen years, died last November. “God rest his soul,” said fifty-four-year-old Robert Avagyan, a refugee from Getashen. “We don't want to speak ill of the dead, but we have to do something to change the situation.”

For most Norabak residents the prerequisite for changing the situation is the fair election of the head of the village administration. “There are a hundred people on one side and sixty people on the other side; we will see if we can win the elections,” Robert Avagyan said. According to him, there are 160 eligible voters (others say there are 157), but the voter list posted in the village contains 206 names. “Sixty of these 206 do not exist,” said Tatul Petrosyan, who teaches math at the local school. “They have either died or left the village.”

The person responsible for community issues at the Vardenis City Council refused to be interviewed but he told us off the record that the community administration had nothing to do with voter lists, but that the police department dealt with these issues and would post the updated list in the village. four days before the elections.

But people in Norabak don't anticipate any real updates since they believe the list is going to be replenished with newly registered people who “immigrated” into the village to secure votes for Artak Karapetyan, the son of the former mayor.

Commenting on complaints by Norabak residents against the new voter registrations, head of the passport desk of the Vardenis police department Avetik Yeranosyan said that the law doesn't permit turning down a request by a person to register in a new place if the person has been taken off the books at his or her old residence.

“If a person has written consent from the homeowner where he or she is going to register I have no right not to register him or her whether it is a pre-election period or anything else,” he said. An application for registration can be turned down if less than 21 days is left until the election. “All the citizens who apply before that time must be registered,” the head of the passport desk said.

In Tatul Petrosyan's opinion the newly registered are “visiting actors”. “They haven't lived here for even one day,” he said. “They don't have a home here; their children don't go to school here.” The math teacher considers the participation of these people in the election to be a gross violation of the law, since Article 2 of the Election Code of Armenia clearly states: “Citizens of theRepublic ofArmenia who have attained the age of 18 years have the right to vote. Every person who has been registered for at least one year and has in fact resided in the given community has the right to vote in the elections to the organs of local governance.”

In addition to the newly registered voters, villagers say the candidate for the post, Artak Karapetyan, is a visiting actor as well. They say that he doesn't live in the village himself- like many other village heads in the area, he lives and work in Vardenis.

Although Article 122 of the Electoral Code states that “Every citizen of the Republic of Armenia, who has attained the age of 25 years, has been a resident of the given community for at least the last two years, and has the right to vote, can be elected as community head,” the person responsible for community issues mentioned above doesn't see any violation here either. “Vardenis or Norabak, what difference does it make? It's the same region,” he said.

Of course, the difference is not great, though the law attests to the opposite. The community head could be a resident ofYerevanor Gyumri, provided he or she has the will to tackle the social and economic problems that have been neglected for years in this remote village. “We need a person that cares about the people, but we don't know where to go now, who to complain to,” Svetlana Arustamova said. As for Tatul Petrosyan, he believes that it's not an issue of a personality. “If Artak Karapetyan is elected fairly, without the ‘visiting actors' or ‘dead souls',” he said, “ we will shake his hand and congratulate him, but if the election is not fair we are going to stand up, to block the precinct door.”

Except for the relatives of Artak Karapetyan (there are a few dozen people bearing the name of Karapetyan here) almost everyone in the village supports Vazgen Asatryan. I asked why. They responded, “Let it be someone new, elected by us and answerable to us.”

And the residents of Norabak have plenty to ask for. The village has no irrigation water and the residents are unable to cultivate the land.

 “I have a plot of land of my own but there is no water to cultivate it,” Robert Avagyan said. “ I go to the mountain to gather hay for raising cattle; that's my only living.”

The UN office inArmeniaand Catholic Relief Services have jointly laid a water pipeline but there is no water. “The water was directed toward a farm built by UMCOR,” Robert Avagyan said. According to villagers the farm didn't serve its purpose and now it's in the possession of the former mayor's other son.

In order to be eligible forParos, a poverty allowance program, you have to pay a bribe. Svetlana Arustamova says that she had to pay 10,000 drams. “Isn't that shameful?” she asked angrily. “ I don't even have bread to eat and they ask me for that kind of money. How am I supposed to get that money back? If I had a cow or some sheep I would have said, the heck with it, but I have nothing and no one cares.”

Unable to cultivate her four hectares of land after her husband's death , Rima Astvatsatryan gave the plot to the former mayor, provided that he would give her 300 kilograms of wheat annually. “Each year he had a reason for not giving me anything,” Rima Astvatsatryan said. “When I said, ‘Give my land back,' he retorted, ‘Pay the back taxes for ten years and I'll give it back to you.”

“My twenty-five-year-old daughter died on January 4 th last year,” Robert Avagyan said. “The roads are blocked in winter and we were unable to take her to the hospital. We wrote letters toArmeniabut there was no response. We wrote a letter to Kocharyan as well; some people came, looked around and left. They just said pro forma that they would decide something.”

Many people in Norabak sayArmeniainstead ofYerevan. At first I thought they had just misspoken, but later I heard one villager call another, saying, “Come here, there's someone fromArmeniahere!” I asked Robert Avagyan, “Isn't thisArmenia?” He responded, “Armeniahas no idea about the situation here. Norabak is an Autonomous Republic.”