By Emma Petrosyan

85 year-old Aharon Vahramyan can’t remember the last time he heard wedding music in his village of Ardvi, in Armenia’s northern Lori Province.

Village nurse Armineh Tamazyan supports the old man’s claim by saying that she hasn’t taken care of a pregnant woman for the past six years.

Even though the events hall in the village was renovated a year ago, the room has yet to be booked for a wedding or baptism.

Young men put off getting married because there is no work. Potential brides prefer suitors from outside the village.

56 year-old Anahit Tamazyan has four sons and two have already left to work abroad. Another son will soon join them.

Edik Dzavaryan has been working abroad for nine years now and only returns to Ardvi in the winter. He says that work can be found in the village but the pay is a pittance.

Mayor Samvel Kirakosyan paints a more optimistic picture and says that the local economy is improving. Livestock numbers are increasing and more land is being cultivated. He expects the situation to get better with time.

Local residents don’t share the mayor’s optimism.

“We don’t have any farm equipment. There’s the one tractor that’s been around for thirty years. It can’t even plow the fields,” complains Rouben Kirakosyan.

Most residents make a living by raising livestock. 48 of the village’s 248 residents are pensioners according to the mayor. There are thirty school age children.

Rouben Kirakosyan says that no one lives in 25 of the 60 homes in the village.

“They’ve all moved away. Even the sons who live close by don’t come back to take care of their parents houses. They’re falling apart,” he says.

Resident Sirvard Mikayelyan sums up the village’s woes in a nutshell - former residents only return to mark sad occasions.

“When someone dies, we have to telephone the children in Russia. They come back to bury their mother or father and then leave.”