Ishkhan Mouradyan and his wife live in the Voskehat village of Armavir Marz. They are Yezidis.

Yezidis are known for raising livestock. Iskhan can only take care of two cows. The joke going round in the village is that if a Yezidi isn’t engaged in raising livestock, he’s turned into an Armenian.

For twenty years Iskhan worked as a movie projectionist in the village and in Yerevan’s Hayrenik, Moscow and Sevan cinemas. He’s an outspoken individual and says he’d work again in the village if the conditions were there.

He also keenly follows political developments and says that he really supported no one party in the run-up to the recent parliamentary elections. He didn’t trust any of them; even Prosperous Armenia despite the party’s many charitable works and the large following it attracted.

Iskhan believes that the situation in the country wouldn’t change for the better even if the Republican and Prosperous Armenia parties won an equal number of votes.

“The Republican, Prosperous Armenia and Rule of Law parties created a coalition, no? But nothing came out of it. I have no head for politics. It’s all a game and I don’t know what to make out of it all. We don’t know where to go or what to do,” Iskhan told me.

He’s against the Republican Party entering into a coalition with anyone else. He wants them to shoulder the burden alone and govern the country.

Iskhan is convinced that our small country can be preserved like a rose and that all it needs is some goodwill.

“The country has possibilities. Our nature is good, the water, and the light and warmth given by God. What’s missing? We’re a people who like to work. They just have to create some incentives for us. I really don’t see the difficulty of governing this country,” Iskhan said.

Azniv, Ishkhan’s wife, wasn’t embarrassed to say that their son had gone off to Russia because it was impossible to live in Armenia.

“My son would leave Russia today to go to a better country if he could,” said Azniv.

Iskhan complains that the government isn’t paying enough attention to the villages. He says that Armenia shouldn’t have problems with irrigation water but that rural residents have to pay through the nose for it.

He joked and told me to film his clothes.

“Look at the holes in my shoes and the patches on my pants. It’s a frightening sight. I only get a monthly pension of 27,500 AMD. How can we survive? We’re both sick. The drug store has turned into our home. I kid you not.”

He told me that life in the village was dead. There’s nothing to do even though the cultural center was renovated two years ago.

“It’s just a building. Nobody goes there for activities, discussions, nothing.”