Anyway, Mr. Berberyan never showed up; he was in Lori Marz and couldn’t make it back to Yerevan. Thus MP Aleksanyan, of the ruling Armenian Republican Party, proceeded to expound his views as to why potato prices had gone up. For a start, he argues that the price hike couldn’t be blames on the ‘oligarchs’, but rather market conditions and the vagaries of the climate. While he agreed that prices had gone up in the past few months, he said it was mainly due to the fact that potatoes weren’t being grown in ideal conditions and that only residents in the higher altitudes grew them. "In the lower lying villages, they are much cheaper," he said. "The crop is brought to the market in the city and the price doubles. In essence, resellers make a bigger profit than the growers." When asked if the price rise could also be tied to the fact that a portion of the potato crop is exported, MP Aleksanyan said that "if it were true, it was a good thing." "When the country exports, it’s good overall. It helps spur local production. If today, city residents are suffering because of the high price of apricots, the villager is benefitting. One part of the populace wins and the other loses," he argued.