It was 2:30pm when we arrived at the mayor’s office in the Armavir community of Sardarapat. The doors were locked.

Local residents told us that municipality workers have been putting in a 9am to 2 pm workday. After that, they are to be found at home.

We went to the house of Mayor Babken Vardanyan, but he wasn’t there. His son telephoned municipal staff secretary Gegham Mkhitaryan and told him to meet us at the office.

Mkhitaryan told us that all the municipal staff were out visiting residents and urging them to pay their taxes by the end of the month. The man couldn’t tell us what the community’s budget amounted to. All he knew was that it had been 90% completed.

The methods employed by the municipality had even overstepped the law.

We spotted two notices affixed to the wall of the municipality stating that those who hadn’t paid their land, water and property taxes wouldn’t get documents or other transactions approved.

Mkhitaryan told us that the municipality was still offering services to residents despite the notices

He said that it had been a tough year for residents engaged in farming and that the municipality had cut land taxes in half and had supplied irrigation water free of charge.

Mkhitaryan added that despite the cuts, not even 100 hectares of arable land out of the 1,050 hectares in the village had been cultivated this year. He said that villagers just don’t have the funds to invest in farming.

Out of the 6,200 registered residents, 200 permanently reside abroad and 100 annually seek seasonal work in Russia.

The municipal secretary assured us that the village had no problems and that everything was honky-dory. After some questioning on our part, it turned out that Sardarapat wasn’t a dream village after all.

The village has a four year development plan but Mkhitaryan said he didn’t have a copy. Neither could he recollect the issues to be tackled according to the development plan.

Mkhitaryan said he’s only been on the job for four months and is just getting up to speed.

He did point out that the system supplying drinking water was in poor shape and that it was one of the problems addressed in the plan.

The community cultural center was renovated three years ago but there’s no money to furnish it.

On the bright side, the village has a kindergarten with around 100 children.

We saw no notices at the municipality about the decisions taken by the community council or any information related to the budget.

Instead, close to the bulletin board, we spotted a notice board advertising the Finka Universal Credit Agency.

Perhaps this is why 1,100 out of Sardarapat’s 1,300 households have taken out loans.