On a recent visit to the border village of Pshtavan a local shop-owner approached and asked, in all seriousness, how he could amass a large fortune quickly even though he owned no significant business operations.

I told him such a thing was impossible.

“Are you some kind of chump?” the villager responded with a chuckle.

“Look at all those MPs. They say they own no businesses but they’re busy counting their millions. Go ask them how they get away with it and then come back and let me know,” he instructed this reporter.

Now go and explain to shop-owner Aram that those MPs he refers to are the country’s elite and have the backing of the top authorities in the land. There’s just no comparison.

Try to explain that someone selling a few bottles of vegetable oil and other odds and ends just can’t compete with those MPs that enjoy a monopoly hold on so much.

I mean, how can shop-owners like Aram get rich quick when the tax inspectors swoop down like birds of prey whenever they forget to issue a sales receipt for a 150 Dram package of tissues?

“Yeah, we’re just simple villagers. But that doesn’t mean we’re that thick-headed not to know where all the money is going and into whose pockets,” Aram blurted, pointing to a list of debts he’s racked up.

Naturally, you can sympathize with Aram and other small shop-owners who want to expand their businesses and take care of their families. But their debts grow and grow daily.

They, unlike the elite MPs, have to work on the up and up, by the book. They can’t compete with the big boys who are able to circumvent the laws in so many ways.

Try and tell Aram that MP Vardan Ayvazyan, like many others, openly boasts that he enjoys the protection of his ruling Republican Party of Armenia.

Go and explain that this official protection has allowed MP Ayvazyan to grow his declared cash of 3.1 million AMD in 2009 to 10.6 million AMD and $72,000 in just one year.

You’d have to be a chump to tell Aram that the 18 million AMD Range Rover and the 25 million AMD Bentley MP Ayvazyan obtained last year was with “clean” money. What about the 14.2 million AMD Mercedes E350 Ayvazyan’s wife Mariam Ginosyan purchased?

Aram might be a small shop-owner in Pshtavan, a few kilometers from the Turkish border, but for damn sure he now understands the difference between small fry like him and the big boys.