Stepanakert shop owner Narineh Baghdasaryan says she can no longer obtain most dairy products to sell to her customers in the Artsakh capital.

All the milk Baghdasaryan brought to the store from a farm the family owns has been sold. She says another trip to the farm is out of the question because there’s no gasoline to be found.

Azerbaijan’s closure of the Lachin Corridor is slowly tightening the pinch felt by storeowners like Baghdasaryan who says that bread was in short supply a few days ago.

“There are no sweets. Cigarettes, juice, water, canned goods, eggs, nothing. There’s only the local jam. People come and ask what they can buy with coupons. There aren’t any. Before the road was closed, when goods were still being imported to a certain extent, people would call in advance and ask how many receipts for the goods we had, and the corresponding store would receive the goods. Now even products with coupons are gone. There are still a few boxes of coffee because we had some in stock," says Baghdasaryan.

Harut Martirosyan, who manages another Stepanakert store, doesn’t know how he’ll pay the rent next month.

Martirosyan says he’s run out of cigarettes and meat and will probably close the store if the shelves remain empty.

The city, via the Red Cross, gets supplies of medicine and basic hygiene items twice weekly.

Pharmacy owner Vardan Harutyunyan says that in the first days of the road closure, he ran out of all kinds of medicine.

"After the checkpoint was closed, we did not receive goods for about two weeks. The shelves were completely empty. People panicked and were buying more than their monthly requirement. We received new supplies two days ago. We don't get the goods in the amount we need,” says Harutyunyan.

Alvina Nersesyan has two sons. She says it’s impossible to find anything she needs in supermarkets.

"There are shops, small stores where you can still find something. The big stores are empty. In the small shops you can find products that remind you of the good life now gone. Yesterday I found Nutella for my sons in a small store in our neighborhood. I was very happy," Nersesyan says.

She complains that the ration coupons are meaningless because there’s little left to buy with them. Nersesyan says the family really needs cooking oil, but that she can’t find any despite a July 1 government decision to establish specific sites in the city to sell oil and sugar for families with kids.