by David Zenian
YEREVAN - Independent Armenia is facing the perils of a market economy and once-unfamiliar problems like inflation, budget deficit, layoffs and unemployment with great determination and resolve.
The road is hard, and some critics are already openly blaming the government of President Levon Ter Petrossian for the nation's post-independence problems, the deterioration of public services, and the general decline in the standard of living.
The government, while facing its critics stoically, is wasting no time to reach out to the windows of opportunity opened by international agencies and Diaspora Armenians willing to share their expertise with one of the new members of the family of nations.
Officials admit that the public sector "is sustaining a far larger work force than it needs" and say "the next item on our agenda is the budget ax, and that means layoffs."
Like the rest of the republics of the former Soviet Union, Armenia is going through a learning process which was interrupted by the advent of communism more than 70 years ago.
Giving Armenia a helping hand in this are such organizations as the International Monetary Fund, whose key role is the smooth functioning of the world's financial system, and the World Bank, which makes loans to foster economic development.
Since late last year, both Washington-based organizations have sent fact-finding missions to Armenia to extend technical assistance and conduct an in-depth dialogue to help design strategies for economic transformation or how to replace central planning with a western-style market economy.
According to IMF and World Bank officials, Armenia has already made major adjustments and is rapidly moving away from the defunct ways of the old Communist economic order.
Agricultural land has been largely privatized, and so have most small stores. Armenia is enthusiastically adopting policies which the IMF hopes will help restore the nation's economic stability.
But the move away from a centrally planned economy has been traumatic.
True, farmers own their fields, but they still have to rely on state-owned cooperatives for such support systems as tractors and other machinery.
The march away from government subsidies has introduced words like inflation into the vocabulary of a nation which was built on the Communist dream of equality to all men and women of the world.
Public transportation is in shambles. Spare parts for Armenia's fleet of Hungarian busses and electric tramways have vanished and replacements are getting more and more difficult to find because of scarcity of hard currency.
Private transportation is also visibly on the decline. There are fewer cars on the streets of Yerevan than a year ago in April because of an unprecedented rise in fuel costs.
Twenty liters of "low octane and adulterated" fuel now sells for 800 rubles compared with a fraction of that sum a year ago. Electricity is rationed and natural gas is a rare commodity.
All these, partly due to the continued Azerbaijani blockade and partly because of the shift to a market economy, have made inflation the most discussed subject in Armenian households, street corners and other gatherings.
"These prices are impossible" and "How are we going to survive", are just some of the most-frequently heard remarks across Armenia. "In the old days, at least we did not have to worry about food", is another common remark.
And true, these remarks are reflective of the spiraling inflation that has hit Armenia since the breakup of the former Soviet Union.
The cheapest of all winter vegetables - cabbage and potatoes - are now expensive commodities, selling at 10 and 15 rubles a kilo respectively -up from one and three rubles a kilo last year.
The price of butter and sugar have also soared to such proportions, that the arrival of new supplies at local food stores no longer triggers long lines of shoppers.
Few people can tell how much a kilo of rice costs, because there has been no rice on the open market for a very long time.
"We cannot find rice, sugar and butter most of the time, and if and when they are available, we cannot afford them anyway," said Asbed, a retired factory worker who receives a pension of 340 rubles per month.
Asbed, who lives in a one bedroom apartment with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law, said soaring inflation was gradually eroding his enthusiasm and faith.
"I am over 65 years old, and in poor health. We can barely survive on our pension .. I don't know where all this will lead. I don't know how larger families are coping with inflation," Asbed said. "In the early years of the Communist era, we were asked to work hard because we were building a model society. We know what happened to that."
"Now, we are free and independent. We are also poor and desperate, and all we hear from the government is that we are on our own and that capitalism is better than communism ... I don't know what to say, or what to think ... I sometimes shrug my shoulders and say, I don't care," he said.
In a bid to alleviate some of the financial burdens of the population, the government has more than quadrupled the minimum wage of factory workers. Similar across the board pay raises were also given to all other sectors of the work force.
"Money has lost its purchase power, and we are now in a stage where income is far behind the inflation rate. How can a pensioner who makes 340 rubles a month afford meat which costs 125 rubles a kilo or butter which costs 250 rubles a kilo," said a U.S-trained economist working for the ministry of trade.
"I make 600 rubles a month which is considered an above-average salary compared to the 400 rubles which members of Parliament get. I live at home with my parents, and at this rate, moving out is not in the horizon," he said.
He smiled when asked if marriage was in the cards. "You must be kidding," he said.
"Under communism, there was a severe housing shortage, but as members of professional syndicates, we managed ways of finding something. Not anymore ... There are no rentals, and if one wants to buy, the prices are very high ... If we are going to go by supply and demand, then the up and coming young generation will never be able to afford to move out of their parents' homes," said Ruzana, a computer operator at a government office.
But for Ruzana, like the thousands of thirty-somethings of her generation, the bitter realities of a capitalist system are sweeter than the "false security of the years gone by."
"Times are hard, and maybe things will get worse. We will try and find scapegoats, including President Ter Petrossian, but in the end we can only blame ourselves if we do not move ahead," she said.
