45-year old Harutyun Virabyan is the father of three children. His eldest, Hrach, is to begin military service this fall. Harutyun, like most of the residents of Zorakan, is not well off, although he works very hard. His relatives in Rostov-upon-Don help him financially. "I want to go and live in Russia too. There is no water here, no jobs," he said.

364 hectares of fruit trees dried up in Zorakan in 1993-94 due to a lack of irrigation water. 336 of them were peach trees. During Soviet times, Zotakan was populated by Azeris, and called Upper Kyorplu. Later, when some of the residents of Chardakhlu - a 1000-household village in the Azerbaijani region of Shamkhor - came and settled here, the village was named Chardakhlu. Some years later, the village was renamed Zorakan, in honor of Marshals Baghramyan and Babajanyan, although the villagers both here and in the Noyemberyan region continue to use the name Chardakhlu.

78-year old Ruben Baghdasaryan recalled the first years he lived here, after he arrived from his native village. "When we reached here, we thought we'd got to heaven. For several years, until 1992, the branches of trees would break under the weight of the fruits they bore. Then the water stopped coming, and the trees withered and dried up. Water is the most important thing - if there is water, we'll be able to live here; otherwise everyone will go away. Where there is water, there is also life. There can be no life without water. They haven't supplied us with water yet this year. The cornelian cherries are withering on the trees. They're saying, 'Give us advance payments and we'll give you water,' while we're saying 'Give us water and we'll pay you,'" complained the old man.

Yuri Manasyan has been the village mayor of Zorakan since January 1, 2001 and was recently re-elected, on May 28. The day of our interview was his first day in his new office. Funding from the Armenian Social Investment Fund and the philanthropist husband and wife the Khndiryans allowed for the construction of a two-floor building in Zorakan which serves as the office of the village administration, a library, club and performance hall.

There are 1,380 residents registered in the village, but only 1,000 are currently here. The other 380 have emigrated, predominantly to Russia. Other former residents of Chardakhlu have moved to the villages of Aygut in Gegharkunik and Khachpar near Masis, as well as some areas of Vardenis. Some people from Chardakhlu moved directly to Russia as early as 1988; others came to Armenia first and then moved to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"The main problem we face is that of yearning and longing for our birthplace and the graves of our ancestors," said Mayor Manasyan, at the same time mentioning local problems like lack of irrigation water and poor socio-economic conditions.

"The irrigational water problem is horrible. We only received water on one occasion last year. The water comes from the Debed, through a quadruple-pump system. The drinking water conditions are quite bad. When we came here we had both drinking water and water for irrigation. It was like heaven for us - the fields were blooming; we would get more than 30 tons of fruit per hectare. But today, the people are in misery," Minasyan said, adding that it is possible to get irrigation water if they pay, but the money required is beyond the means of many of the villagers.

What can be done to free people from the grip of misery? "Solve the water problem, plant peach orchards," answered the community leader.

Emigration from this village continues, though not at the same pace as before. People mostly go abroad to work. "In an economic sense, life has come to a standstill. Our development depends on water. The fruits on our fig trees or cornels wither and die on the trees, while the leaves dry up in the summer heat. The harvest turns into dried fruit on the trees themselves," said Manasyan. There are no prospects for the development of animal husbandry, because Zorakan does not have mountains. Their mountain land is in Stepanavan, quite a distance away. Each family keeps only one or two cows.

In the mid-1990s, when there was a shortage of bread in Zorakan, the peach trees were cut down and the stumps were removed to sow wheat fields, and later barley. Neither of these crops is very efficient for the conditions in this region. This is peach country. While one hectare yields two or three tons of wheat or barley, one hectare of peach trees yields more than thirty tons of sun-kissed fruit. Twelve hectares of peach tree were replanted through an IFAD program and the first fruits were obtained last year. But the program has not continued, and the villagers do not have the means to replant the peach orchards themselves.

In 2003, 100% of the electorate of this village, around 550 people, voted for Robert Kocharyan. In 1998, only two people had not voted for the current president. The mayor said that the Armenian president was respected in Zorakan. When asked whether or not the residents of Zorakan did not expect any special treatment from the President for their 100% vote, Manasyan said that they did not, that they voted out of respect for the state leader.

Azerbaijani graveyards in Zorakan, like in most other Armenian regions, have not been desecrated. But in what condition are the Armenian graveyards in Chardakhlu, where Azeri immigrants from various Armenian regions now reside? The former residents of Chardakhlu who now live in Russia send reporters there every year to capture the village on video. "The graveyards of our ancestors are in ruins. Here, we have preserved the Azeri graveyards as much as possible. When we first came here, we had problems with the guys from the neighboring village because of these graveyards; they were trying to ruin them. We didn't want to damage these graveyards, so that the Azeris would not damage ours. They know that their ancestors' graveyards here are not in ruins. If we can get information and video material about a village in the depths of Azerbaijan, then they can definitely get the same kind of documentation about this village. The Turks have tried to wipe out evidence of our existence for centuries. Our former village was on the territory of Gardmana with old Armenian fortresses and churches. We don't do any damage to the Azerbaijani graves because we are not barbarians and we know that this is Armenian land," said the mayor.

Although the latest Armenian-Azeri conflict, or as it is called, the Karabakh Movement, is considered to have begun in 1988, in reality the wave of violence began in Chardakhlu in mid-1987. Sevil Danielyan was secretary to the president of the Chardakhlu village council from 1977 to 1988, and often interacted officially with the administration of the Shamkhor region.

"In the fall of 1987, rumors circulated that the Azeris would remove us from Chardakhlu, and from the other Armenian villages in Shamkhor as well. They had already begun to refuse Armenian patients treatment in the Shamkhor hospital and stopped supplying bread to Chardakhlu, and our cars would often be stoned. Portraits of Marshals Baghramyan and Babajanyan used to hang in the Shamkhor military commission. The last time I went there, in November 1987 - there were some problems with Armenians conscripts - I saw that those portraits were no longer there. I asked the commission why they had been removed. He answered rudely, saying it was none of my business. That day I realized that something was going to happen to the Armenians," recalled Sevil Danielyan.

Zorakan-Yerevan