“I’ve sold the house and will probably move to Russia” Mkrtich Mkrtchyan, a resident of the village of Nor Armavir, in Armavir Marz, is one of the forty local families that now face a host of credit problems with the banks. Many of the cases have ...
According to preliminary estimates by the Aragatzotn Natural Disasters Inspection Committee, 300 hectares of apricot trees suffered frost damage early this spring in the region, resulting in 142 million AMD in damages. Lyova Mnatsakanyan, Deputy Chief of ...
Rise in U.S. Dollar a Primary Cause of the Problem The village of Darakerd, in Armenia’s southern province of Armavir, has 3,000 inhabitants. They all are involved in agriculture. Village Mayor Ghoukas Simonyan said that while residents work the land, ...
Mixed marriages and cultural assimilation are today’s norms It was a Sunday, exactly 10 in the morning. From one of the streets in Bucharest, the Rumanian capital, one could hear the lilting strains of a church liturgy being performed. A few older ...
The recent cold snap has damaged farm crops in the Ararat valley, particularly plum and apricot trees that had blossomed due to the preceding warm weather. The Armavir Regional Authority told Hetq that the region’s entire apricot crop of some 3,360 hectares ...
Glendale Hills, the construction company whose apartments built in Gyumri for families left homeless by the earthquake were described as ‘inhabitable" by President Sargsyan, is refusing to answer any questions posed by Hetq.
Hetq is starting a series highlighting various members of the RoA National Assembly. This week we would like to bring to your attention MP Hrant Grigoryan who represents District 20 in Armavir Marz.
MP Tigran Torosyan: “People must understand officials are not here to hand out favors” Trying to reach the village of Vardenis, Aragatzotn Marz, especially during the winter, is an arduous and nearly impossible journey. Roads leading to the village, ...
Sasha Davtyan, a resident of the Katnaghbyur village in Aragatzotn, had his 4 year sentence for physically abusing his daughter reduced to three years today by the Criminal Court of Appeals. After delivering the sentence, Judge M. Rehanyan freed Davtyan under ...
Raises Three Grandchildren in Hut Next to Town Garbage Dump For the past two years Laura Tadevosyan has been raising her three young grandchildren next to a smoldering garbage dump in the village of Sasunik, Aragatzotn Marz. This is where Carmen Ghahramanyan, ...
Farmers can’t pay off loans when 3,500 tons of grapes remain in refrigerators Everyone in the village of Verin Artashat, in Ararat Marz, is unhappy about their lot in life. Almost all have put their homes and land up as collateral for loans. “There’s ...
Residents of the town of Martuni, in Gegharkunik Province, are fearful and angry. During the past month, crimes have followed one another like clockwork but none of the perpetrators have been caught. The ...
In an apparent surprise to many in attendance, Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan opened the next consecutive session of the Aragatzotn Regional Council. After rural community leaders presented a check list of the problems faced by area villagers, Mr. Gevorgyan ...
Many residents of Verin Artashat, a village in Ararat Marz, are having a tough time paying off their loans. Some put their houses up for collateral, others, their land. Most didn’t want to talk about their financial problems, but a few relented. They ...
Village residents found out that their neighbor, Sasha Davtyan, had been charged with the rape of his own daughter, 17 year-old Anahit, when the police came to arrest him. The news shook the village to its core.
Arshak Ghazaryan, high school principal in the village of Bagaran straddling the Armenian border with Turkey, fears that there’ll be no one left in the community in a few more years. He says that the young people are leaving, due to a lack of work, and ...
In the village of Bagaran in the southern Armenian region of Armavir, the men folk crouched by the house walls were complaining that their wives were so tuckered-out after ferrying water from the well, they couldn’t do any housework. The village, located ...
Questions Linger After Botched Investigation by Police and Prosecutor’s Office
“We’ve had it up to here with our situation, of constantly filing petitions and requests, of writing letters to this and that official, telling them, someone, to help us in saving this library of ours.”
At today’s year-end session of the Aragatzotn Regional Council, Sirasnik Hovsepyan, who heads the Local Self-Governance Administration, threatened to up the fines from 40,000 to 100,000 AMD for those community mayors who continue to evade the chlorination ...
The first thing that a resident of the village of Aragatz, in the Aragatzotn Marz, sees upon entering the community municipality building is a sign stating that those who haven’t paid their taxes need not waste their time by filing any sort of petition or ...
As of 2007, residents of the border village of Nerkin Karmiraghbyur, Tavush Marz, have been living in fear and dread. The Azerbaijani villages of Albalu and Hajalu lie only 700 meters away. During the past two years, there have been eight incidents of cattle ...
20% of the doctors at the “Berd Medical Center” located in Tavoush Marz have reached retirement age. Some of them have reached an age where they suffer from certain physical disabilities. The problem is that there is no one to replace them. Medical Center ...
Former Heritage Party MP Hakob Hakobyan denied allegations that he has given up on politics following defeat last year in the Etchmiadzin race for mayor. When asked why he has been keeping a low profile, Mr. Hakobyan replied, “Who says I’ve left the ...
Government Decision N10645, adopted on September 4, 2008, deals with the procedure for “Supplying the mass media with statistics subject to publication of the property and income of government officials.” We should note that this new decision invalidated ...
“Hetq” conducted the following interview with Emil Gabrielyan, Director of the RoA Ministry of Health’s Center for Pharmaceuticals and Medical Technology Testing Mr. Gabrielyan, how are medicines licensed in Armenia and what is the process involved ...
The two-story building, located in the middle of the village of Ushi, Aragatzotn Marz, seen in the accompanying photo looks to the uninformed observer as a normal; apartment building. There are no signs on the outside wall to suggest otherwise. In reality, ...
Avetik Avetikyan, a resident of the village in Aknashen, in Armavir Marz, signed a 5 year mortgage contract with the “Arfin” Credit Agency at a 24% annual interest rate. Mr. Avetikyan took out a 3.3 million AMD loan to renovate his house and to start-up ...
Yesterday, a group of "Hetq" reporters went to the village of Ohanavan to speak with the local mayor. It seems that residents have been complaining about the potable water situation in the village as well as the problems they face in selling their apple crop. When ...
The Civil Status Acts Register (CSAR) office in the town of Jambarak, Gegharkunuik Marz, has many local residents up in arms. It’s the way they are treated by Lousineh Mkhitaryan, the woman who runs the place as she pleases; often keeping residents waiting ...
Farkha Hakobyan – “I’ll never go back to Turkey” Farkha Hakobyan was born in the village of Sinan, located in the Ottoman villayet of Diyarbekir, in 1908. She doesn’t remember how old she was when she lost her mother. She can’t even recall if ...
Mayors of Armenian border villages speak out on the protocols: Ruben Karapetyan, Mayor of the Araks village in Armavir Marz, expressed complete opposition to the signing. He said that while he favored an open border with Turkey, he was opposed to the preconditions ...
Walk down the two main streets in the town of Sevan and you’ll see fruits and vegetables being sold on the sidewalks alongside wandering cats and dogs. It would appear that no one from the mayor’s office, located close by, is either aware of this evident ...
I recently visited the Garni temple and witnessed an argument between a French tourist and a service employee at the entrance to the site. The French tourist was up in arms over the fact that he had been charged 1,000 AMD as an entrance fee; 10 times more ...
By looking at this photo, one would hardly imagine that this houses the community municipality and that local self government decisions in the name of the Republic of Armenia are adopted here. After I first spotted this iron-clad hut, located in the middle ...
Every three months, Aragatzotn Regional Governor Sargis Sahakyan arranges public receptions where citizens can come and present their views and grievances directly to the person in charge of their region. On September 10, Mr. Sahakyan visited the town of Abaran, ...
It appear that members of the Aragatzotn Regional Council, local community leaders and other government officials, actually read "Hetq" and are concerned about how the press views their actions, inaction and personal habits. On September 18, I visited ...
Armavir Marz is famous not only for the number of generals it has produced. For many top officials the region affords the opportunity to obtain hundreds of acres of choice land for agricultural endeavours. In this context we asked Armavir Regional Administrator ...
Misak Misakyan, mayor of the rural community of Aknashen in Armavir Marz, agrees with local residents that the quality of insecticides purchased from the market are substandard and not at all effective when it comes to battling insects that do harm to crops. "Our ...
Residents of Vardenis get their drinking water from a gravity fed system but the "Armenian Water and Sewage Company" has decided to force consumers to install water meters. This decision has not only got local residents up in arms but Vardenis Mayor Volodya ...
For the last two years, residents of the village of Bagaran in Armavir Marz have been warning visitors not to leave their houses after it gets dark. They warn outsiders that a masked man roams the village streets at night, sowing fear and dread in all he comes ...
When we traveled to the Banavan neighborhood of Vardenis to visit the family of Samvel Poghosyan, the kids were fighting over a bottle of “matzoun” bought at the store. Grabbing the bottle, each was trying to empty its contents on the plate in front of ...
The gas filling station belonging to “Artyom-M.M.M. Group Ltd” is located practically on the bridge where the Yerevan-Ashtarak and Yeghvard-Ashtarak roadways intersect. It belongs to Artyom Makaryan, who heads the Spitak branch of the Prosperous Armenia ...
When we approached the wooden hut, Margarita, a 4 year-old girl, rushed out to greet us. “Will you be building us a new house?” she asked with a wide smile on her face. When I answered in the negative, the smile was replaced with a scowl and she stopped ...
Based on information reported by Aida Papoyan, a resident of the town of Ashtarak, and teachers of the town’s #1 Special Dormitory, staff at the Aragatzotn Regional Authority’s Children’s Rights Division uncovered the fact that Hakob Harutyunyan, ...
The town of Talin in Aragatzotn Marz will soon be outfitted with a waste recycling plant as a gift from its sister-city of Bourg de Valence, France. The agreement was reached when the benefactors from France recently visited Talin. According to the first ...
We happened upon Artur Yeghiazaryan, Susanna Karapetyan and the 12 year-old daughter, Anna, quite by chance in the village of Shaumyan, Armavir Marz. Living in the same village and in similar conditions is Susannah’s sister. We traveled to Shaumyan to ...
One of the six issues taken up by the RoA Control Chamber on June 30 dealt with the cultural sector, more specifically with monitoring of state funds and property allocated to the Ministry of Culture during fiscal year 2007-2008. The Control Chamber audits ...
The opposition political alliance HAK has called for a public rally today in Yerevan and, true to form, public inter-city transport from outlying communities to the capital has been severely cut. There is no minivan or bus service from Etchmiadzin, Ashtarak, ...