Yesterday, former RoA Central Bank President Bagrat Asatryan described to reporters his recent visit to two villages in the country. His observations weren’t too encouraging. "I visited Darpas village, where my grandfathers were born in Sisian, and Ahnidzor, the village of the writer Hrant Matevosyan. The conditions, nature and people are different. But they share a common calamity. People are leaving the villages," commented Mr. Asatryan.

Twenty five years ago Darpas has a student body of 300-400. Today, only 30 students go to school there. In Ahnidzor, a much smaller village, there were some 200 students twenty five years ago. Now, the number has dropped to 35. Mr. Asatryan said the common factor at play in both is the lack of roads. Both communities are cut off from the main highway by about twenty kilometres. "Those twenty kilometres constitute a road from hell. It prevents the villagers from having vital contacts with the outside world and from selling their goods. If this government is sincerely concerned with the plight of rural residents it should undertake the construction of secondary roads in at least one hundred such villages scattered across the country," he said. "The villages constitute a real problem for Armenia. The citizens are extraneous for the RoA. The government merely regards them as consumers or taxpayers. The village is even worse off. Nobody seems to give a damn," concluded Mr. Asatryan