Village of Baghramyan Remembers a Glorious Agrarian Past Residents of Baghramyan village plowed up their grapevines in the early 1990’s to protest the fact that local factories hadn’t paid them for their produce. Grapes were the main livelihood for the village. At best, farmers would only receive 20 liters of diesel fuel for every one ton of grapes. “To be honest, I haven’t calculated what it would cost to plant new fields. But I know it’s an expensive proposition. A villager needs to make investments for four years to see any kind of crop during the fifth. And there are no guarantees that the farmer can sell the crop, notes Baghramyan Mayor Babken Shahbazyan. Some local villagers estimate that it would take $10,000 to plant one hectare of grapevines today, Baghramyan, a village   in Armenia’s Armavir Marz, was founded in 1946 and named after the WWII Soviet military hero Marshall Baghramyan. The stony soil of the village is ideally suited for grape growing and the vineyards were planted soon after the community was established. In a short few years, the community became known for its abundant and juicy sweet grapes. Baghramyan had over 320 hectares of vineyards and the grapes grown in the community were highly appreciated for many years hence. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and with it the local vineyards. Today, the village has slipped into poverty. Mayor Shahbazyan believes that land holdings must increase in size before the local farm economy can get back on its feet. He is sure that residents would sell their land if an interested buyer could be found. “The right conditions need to be created for the villagers to sell their land. A farming operation would have to be set up; an enterprise ready to make serious investments in the area. I am a pretty food farmer myself but I’m also ready to sell my land. It’s tough for small plot owners to make the necessary investment and the expenses are plenty. Even those who have purchased some land aren’t involved in farming. Armenians living overseas have bought a few hectares in the village but not to farm. It’s a capital investment for them. The land remains fallow. No one’s expressed any interest in buying land hereabouts for the past 2-3 years.” Today, the entire village has turned into a semi-arid expanse. The soil has been left to degrade to the point that even small vegetable plots can’t be cultivated. No wonder that only 10% of the community’s agricultural lands are being cultivated today. Baghramyan has 1,070 hectares of land of which 535 are arable, 11 are fruit tree orchards, etc. “Locals don’t work the land and so the village is facing hard economic times. Even collecting taxes is getting tougher. Many use their pensions and benefit allowances to pay taxes for the fallow land. Even though the land tax isn’t all that exorbitant, the max is 10,000 AMD per hectare, some villagers can’t pay.” The number of residents leaving the village for work abroad has risen over the past few years; mostly to Europe – Holland and Belgium. Yearly, 3-5 families pull up stakes and leave Armenia for good. At least 100 villagers leave for temporary work abroad. The ripple effects of the recent financial crisis have hit the village hard. Before the crisis, most of Baghramyan’s young people were employed at furniture production enterprises in the villages of Argavand and Tairov. They suffered cutbacks and many were left jobless. “The young have no desire to work the land. They want easier jobs that pay more, but today, there is no such work to be found. Thus, they either go abroad or move to Yerevan. On average, farmers here are 45 and older,” says the mayor. There has been little in the way of large investment in Baghramyan during recent years. The cultural center, which also houses the mayor’s office, was built in the 1960’s and hasn’t even been repaired since. There’s a dance group for the youngsters in the dilapidated building. “We just don’t have the funds to renovate the building. There’s a director for the cultural center and the dance group is pretty good, but the conditions are lacking. Cultural life here in the village would take off if we could only renovate the place,” says Mayor Shahbazyan. He hasn’t calculated how much it would take to repair the center, but he’s heard that a neighboring village did a similar job for 50 million AMD.  This figure struck a chord of fear with the municipality staff. Baghramyan’s kindergarten is also in need of major overhaul. The mayor proudly notes that the school didn’t even close its doors during the “cold and dark” years of the early 1990’s. The villagers poled their meager resources and kept the place going. Today, forty kids attend the kindergarten. The village also has a large park, but the benches are busted and children play with whatever they can find. When we visited, you could see some cows grazing in the park. A few seniors were sitting on the broken benches passing the time of day playing backgammon. Grandpa Gevorg says he lives by himself; his two sons having gone off to work overseas. The 65 year-old Baghramyan resident says he comes to the park to sit in the sun and to escape the boredom of everyday life. “It’s also the cheapest way to get warm. They’ve jacked up the price of gas so much that you think twice before turning on the stove for heat,” he said. At first, Grandpa Gevorg was reluctant to give his full name. He would just tell me his first, confessing that his reluctance was due to the “ill will” now sweeping Armenia. “Tomorrow, I won’t be around. But what about my children? We live in an era today when you have to think twice before saying anything. I might let something slip from my tongue today that will come back to haunt my kids later on,” concluded the old man.