Dalarik is a small village in the Armavir Marz. Anyone with a chance to do so moves out of the village. “Armenia isn’t just the city of Yerevan, right? Don’t those of us that live here count as people too? Who is supposed to look out for us? If anyone asks, just how long to you think a person can go without water like they are forcing us to do here?”  protests village resident Arpik Vartanyan, posing the question to no one in particular.

The villagers are frequently afflicted with stomach and other intestinal disorders and the culprit is the drinking water.

Dalarik, like some surrounding villages, buys its water emanating from the Talin cisterns. A bucket costs 50 drams. Elderly resident Mrs. Tamara says that if she doesn’t have the money and asks for a free pail, they refuse her. I go without water. She confesses that in order to bathe she takes a risk and climbs down into the canyon.

In 2006 the “Nor Akunk” company built the drinking water distribution system in the Dalarik and signed a contract with the Village Municipality regarding its operation. Norik Gevorgyan, President of “Nor Akunk”, and Village Mayor Pargev Saghatelyan, signed the contract. According to the document, the Mayor in turn had to sign a contract with all the households in the village regarding the operation of the water system.

However, the residents of Dalarik received no water after signing the contract and remain without water today. The head of “Nor Akunk” was startled to hear that the system hasn’t been operating for some two years. Norik Gevorgyan states that, “Every day we release 8 cubic meters of water per hour from the holding reservoir and we’ve even made sacrifices. We only collect payment for 50% of the water distributed, the other half we register as a loss.” He promised to immediately look into the matter.

The villagers maintain that the Mayor would never want them to have access to free-flowing water. Apparently angry, a man blurted out that, “He’s making out quite nice in the water business. He brings water from Talin and sells it to us.” He then regained his composure and, observing the facial expression of a woman standing by, asked that his remarks not be recorded. The villagers are quite fearful and don’t want their names to be attached to any type of statement and if they do they speak they do so in hushed tones so that no one can overhear. “They’re afraid.” says Khanum Avdalyan, representative of the Armenian Republican Party’s local branch.
Later on when we met up with Village Mayor Saghatelyan we understood the reason for their fear. Not only couldn’t he accept the fact that the village he managed was going to ruin but he even attempted to convince us that what we had heard and seen was either a lie or a fabrication of reality and that the waters were flowing abundantly.

Furthermore, he insisted that he take us to see the village streets flooded with water. In turned out that he never made good on this promise because such streets in fact didn’t exist.
In May, the village of Dalarik, which has been run by Mayor Pargev Saghatelyan for two consecutive terms, will be holding new municipal elections.