Gayaneh Vardanyan and Souren Harutyunyan, both residents of Building 13 on Engels Street in the town of Alaverdi, angrily point to the two garbage receptacles located in the courtyard of their building. The receptacles are also used by residents of four ...
In two months, Silva Gevorgyan, a 37 year-old resident of Kachachkout, is going to have her sixth child. The parents believe that the new- born child will make their situation even harder. “I didn’t have money for an abortion. I had to have the baby. ...
The family of Anahit Hovhannisyan, who resides in building #3/5-20, in the Sarahart district in the city of Alaverdi, now finds herself in extreme poverty. “I am unemployed. My family consists of 7 members, me and my six children. My husband disappeared ...
Hetq spoke with Ruben Papoyan, a member of the executive board of Teghut Ltd. regarding the current situation at the proposed mine site given the fact the VTB Bank has still not come through with much needed financial assistance. "Presently, preliminary ...
Recently a business plan entitled “Northern Gateway”, designed to spur the tourism sector in the Tumanyan district of Loris Marz, was circulated in the local town of Alaverdi. The plan, the brainchild of Vazgen Khachikyan, who heads the State Social Insurance ...
An interview with Gagik Arzumanyan, Executive Director of Armenian Copper Programme (ACP) What is the situation at the Vallex Group given the present stage of the economic crisis? In particular, regarding plans for the mining operation of the ACP at Teghut. ...
Koto Bejanov, a resident of Akhtala in the Lori Marz, used to work in the Mine owned by the company, the site of recent lay-offs. Mr. Bejanov is a victim of those lay-offs as well. "I can't say how many they fired, but I'm one of them. Now, none of the ...
On February 5, when we visited Samvel Gigolyan, the newly-elected mayor of the village of Tchotchkan in Lori Province, he was quite concerned about the municipality paperwork handed over to him just two months ago by former Tchotchkan mayor Varujan Tamazyan. ...
During the last ten years of our travels to the Tumanyan district of Lori Marz, Sergo Karyan, the newly elected community leader of Haghpat, is perhaps the only literate local official we have met. He told us that before being elected community leader, the ...
The arsenic graveyard of the Alaverdi Mining and Metallurgical Plant, a legacy of the Soviet era, is located on the edges of the road leading to the town’s “Len-Hanker” neighborhood, a mere one kilometer from the district. The Alaverdi-based Armenian ...
Sanasar and Marineh Ghevondyan, residents of the village of Odzun in the Lori Marz, have brought four male sons into the world. The eldest is thirteen and the youngest is three. “We have lived together for fifteen years, eight of which my husband has lived ...
Today, no white plums could be seen emanating from the smokestacks at the Alaverdi Copper Smelting Plant. When asked if this meant that the facility was no longer being operated, Andranik Ghambaryan, who heads the Public Affairs Division at the Armenian Copper ...
- What is the current price of copper on the global market?
“Hetq” has often written about how poisonous wastes from the plant flow directly into the Debed River without first passing through the tailings dam. (See: “The Armenian Government is Obligated to Shut Down the Akhtala Mine Enrichment Plant” ...
Vanadzor Deputy Mayor Norik Sardaryan explained to us that, “Such an order is a document akin to a residency permit. It is not a house or a private ownership document. The right has been granted to those people to live in those huts since people were ...
The Cultural Palace is the property of Serop Der-Boghosian as well. As to why Mr. Der- Boghosian saw the necessity to place his picture on the wall of a building he owns, for all the residents of Akhtala that he employs to see on a daily basis, is anyone’s ...
On July 12, we headed off to a certain spot in the forest. On the newly constructed road leading to the Teghut mine we came across Engel Avetyan, a village resident who was leading his flock of animals to graze. He told us that, “Yeah, there’s ...
The article had presented information regarding the diversion of budget funds during the construction of a new cemetery in the town of Alaverdi. The investigation of the matter by the OSS quickly resembled more of a farce than anything else. The Agency noted ...
Melik Ayvazyan, the Village Mayor of Odzun, who goes by the nickname ‘Alabash Melo’, has seemingly gone out of his way to see to it that the residents there suffer the consequences of their political actions. The families of local residents Albert ...
He really comes into the picture during national elections when residents of Akhtala come out to support him under the banner, “For the honor of our Vazgen.” In this context Mr. Khachikyan himself state that in the National Assembly elections of ...
One of the most influential men in the village of Akhtala, located in Lori Marz (Region), is Vazgen Khachikyan. A member of the Republican Party, he currently serves as the Chairman of the State Social Insurance Fund of Armenia and is a former deputy to the National Assembly.
Due to existing unemployment the city of Tumanyan, with some 1,900 residents, is in dire social straits. During the Soviet era 1,200 people worked in Tumanyan’s fire-resistant brick processing factory. Mostly women worked in the knitted clothing plant that employed some 200.
Melik Ayvazyan, the Mayor of the village of Odzun in Lori Marz, states that only 100 of the village’s 1,000 hectares of arable land have undergone a fall planting.
On November 11th a “Zil 131” truck tipped over and rolled into the valley below while returning from the Lalvar forest products company located near the village of Shogh in the Lori Marz (Region). The truck was loaded with wood from tip to toe.
With the aim of solving immediate problems confronting the Marzes (Administrative Regions), the Government of the Republic of Armenia (ROA) has approved a decision to allocate a total of 1 billion and 770 thousand Armenian Drams from the 2007 forecasted Reserve Fund of the ROA State Budget for project expenditures in the Lori Marze.
On November 3, the Vallex Group officially announced the beginning of its construction of a copper and molybdenum mine in the village of Teghut. Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan was present at the ceremony, and nothing was spared to make it an impressive event.
In 2007, the Alaverdi Municipality allocated 7,200,000 drams (US $ 21,500) to build a toilet near the entrance to the monastery in the village of Sanahin. Construction work on the toilet has yet to be completed.
Despite the coverage of environmental issues in the Armenian media, the demands of the people and the government towards industries have remained unchanged.
According to residents of Atan, a village of 400 in the Lori Marz, there has been an outbreak of disease among their livestock that has lasted for fifteen or twenty days now.
On June 1, the Akhtala Mine Enrichment Plant (AMEP) owned by Metal Prince ltd. closed down.
On May 12, the Parliamentary elections in Constituency 31 (Vanadzor, Alaverdi) featured a parade of “brotherhood”.
Head of the administration of the village of Akori in the Lori Marz and Republican Party member Kamo Simonyan said on Alaverdi's Ankyun +3 TV station the Republican Party is a very good party, and in his opinion the entire village should join it, even though the party hasn't done anything for the village of Akori. To this end, Simonyan forcibly collected the passports of the villagers, and even took it into his head to summon the parents of...
Of eighty-eight grocery stores registered with the tax inspectorate of Alaverdi only two - the main store in the Sarahart district, operated by Atorik, Ltd., and Narine Kharatyan's store in the same district – meet the required sanitary standards.
An early election campaign for parliamentary seats stubbornly rages on in the city of Alaverdi and the regional communities of Tumanyan in the Lori Marz.
On April 6, 2006 Armen Sargsyan a young resident of the village of Arevatsag village in the Lori Marz saw that there was no firewood at home, so he and his cousins Samvel and Manvel harnessed their horse, took an axe and a two-man saw and went to collect firewood from the side roads of Arevatsag and the neighboring Mgart.
In the beginning of September the residents of Alaverdi learned from flyers distributed around town the Armenian Copper Program (ACP), CJSC (the Alaverdi copper-smelting plant) had arranged for a new loan project with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Karen Karapetyan, elected to parliament on a majoritarian ticket in Lori Marz's District 32, is currently performing miracles of charity in Tashir. Ahead of the 2007 parliamentary elections, Karapetyan has been bribing residents of Tsater, Aygehar, Mghart, Ardvi, and other villages in his district with two kilograms of sugar.
In recent years, lack of cultivation has rendered 900 hectares of land in the village of Otzun barren. As to why they are not cultivating their own soil, forty of the villagers we interviewed told us, "There's nothing we can do; we're too poor."
The conflict that began in 2005 between two of Armenia's wealthiest entrepreneurs, Gagik Tsarukyan, president of Multi Group and Valeri Mejlumyan, owner of Armenia Metal Program, continues to intensify.
Last December, the local council of Alaverdi approved the budget performance for nine months of 2005, a three-year-program for the socio-economic development of Alaverdi for 2006-2008, and the 2006 budget. But the discussion of these vital issues was kept from the citizens of Alaverdi.