by John Hughes
Far from the manner by which it is demonstrated in Yerevan, and farther still from most outsiders' appreciable comprehension, life for a third or more of all Armenians is metered out in the daily struggle that is the reality of post-Soviet rural existence.
The republic's (arguably inflated) population of about three million is mostly accessible in its 47 urban communities. But it is in its 942 villages where, in habitat and in habit, the average Armenian's daily living is more common to 19th century prairie life than to 21st century metropolitan expansion.
In 1996, by implementation of a new law, the Republic of Armenia was divided into 11 provinces ("marzes"), including the capital, which has the status of a separate province. Prior to that time, in matters of administrative responsibility, Armenia was divided into 37 regions and four cities (Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor and Dilijan).
Each province has an administrative center, and a governor, appointed by the President of Armenia. And each village has a head, who is elected.
The State budget provides allocations for each province—this year ranging from about $16 million for Yerevan to about $2 million for Vayots Dzor, the least populated.
As different as conditions are between, for example, Yerevan and Vanadzor or Goris or Stepanavan, the difference grows even greater between a "marz" city and village.
Even each province has its peculiarities. On a day when the capital is bathed in sunshine, a village in Aragatsotn may be locked down by snow. Seven different landscapes can be found in the 10 provinces, ranging from desert to alpine. And an estimated 35 dialects can be heard, dividing an already tiny country into linguistic subsections that can vary not only from marz to marz, but from village to village.
But whether in a Syunik village bordering Iran or one in Shirak bordering Georgia, the differences of landscape and language are less distinct than the commonalities that unite nearly all villagers.
Life progresses for some and settles into numb resolution for others. For most villagers in Armenia, however, survival is considered achievement and improving one's circumstances hardly imaginable.
In interviews in the rural parts of every province while preparing these articles, eight journalists asked the same questions, and with hardly an exception were given common responses on major topics.
Politics
Political life in most villages is not developed. Some villagers feel intimidated by authorities and do not express their political preferences, since in case of political persecution they feel unprotected, without the benefit of anonymity that comes with city life.
Local authorities often stay in power, either from a sense of voter defeatism over whether change would bring improvement, or from the simple condition of "everybody knowing everybody", and, therefore not wishing to get on the wrong side of someone of power.
"In small villages the same person is elected for years," says Armen Darbinian, who lives in the Tavush village of Chichin. "The same is in ours. For instance, the head of our village has ruled for 18 years. We just get used to a person. Besides, the place is small; you would be ashamed to choose anyone else."
As to national politics, many villagers say they feel disenfranchised. Almost by rote, villagers say neither their provincial administration nor the State government pays proper attention to their situation.
But dissatisfaction does not necessarily reveal itself on election day.
The head of the Moreni village in Syunik province, Armen Harutyunian, says his villagers complain and are discontented with their lives. But in the last presidential election President Robert Kocharian received 95 percent of the votes in Moreni.
Asked why they backed an administration they were not happy with, villagers themselves asked a question: "What would change if we didn't?"
It is not a pattern necessarily born of post-independence disillusionment. Even in 1990 when it was clear that the communist authorities would be toppled, people in rural communities still elected the ruling communists.
"Our villagers do not care who will be elected president," says Radik Harutyunian of the Tavush village of Berkaber. "Most did not even take part in the voting. But I have been the chairman of the (election) commission during the elections and I can tell you they were fair. But nothing is decided (by the votes) in our village."
Economy
The collapse of the Soviet Union badly affected the infrastructures and industrial capacity of Armenian provinces in urban and, especially, rural environments. In cities, factories and plants shut down; in villages, collective farms were disbanded.
When in 1991 villagers and commercial farmers were allowed to privatize lands, it soon became apparent that they not only lacked necessities such as machinery and irrigation, but they also came up short in knowing how to manage a business.
The transition to a market economy was like a new language and most are still waiting to learn the vocabulary.
Several organizations in Armenia work to support the provinces by offering loan programs for equipment, cattle, seeds, etc.
Andranik Arshakian, from the Noravan village of Armavir marz tells about his failed experience in running his own business.
In 1998 he took $1,000 credit from the Armenian Agricultural Cooperation Bank and founded a small farm.
"I worked for two years, but then quit the business," he says. "I could not withstand the competition. There were lots of taxes and the credit was for one year. If only it was a long-term credit I would run it bit by bit."
In 2002 the Department for International Development of the British Government (DfID,) launched programs on poverty reduction in two provinces—in Gegharkunik, where 55 percent of the population is considered poor, and in Tavush, where the figure is 63 percent.
The four year program costs $8 million and is designed to assist the regional and local administration to develop a poverty reduction strategy. The program formed working groups of private businessmen, local authorities, mayors, and the regional administration.
The implementation of the project will start after it is approved by the government, and if it runs successfully, DfID will start working with other marzes as well.
"What marzes really need today are well-educated people with initiative," says Ara Hovsepian, head of the DfID office in Yerevan. "Human resources are an issue in the marzes. Most of the educated people have left, some for Yerevan, others for Russia because they see no chance to apply their knowledge."
The project envisages residents taking a leading role in the development of their village, including suggesting means of cooperation between the local administration and residents.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is similarly concerned about life in the provinces and has allocated $1.9 million from 2003-2005 for its "Armenian Local Government" program.
"Our goal is to help local governments and their citizens work together to strengthen municipal responsibilities, identify needed capital improvements, and conduct economic development plans," says Fred Van Antwerp, chief of Party of the Urban Institute.
"I think the big problem in the marzes' cities is the relationship between citizens and local government. There is very little trust in Armenian cities between the citizens and their local leaders. The local government should learn how to be open and transparent to its citizens."
At the same time Van Antwerp, who worked for years on similar projects in Central Europe, mentions that in Armenia local government and populations were eager to cooperate and learn more.
"For example, in the Czech Republic people were not interested in the technical assistance of USAID or they thought they just knew everything. It was very difficult to get them to change anything," he says. "In Armenia I found it very encouraging that when we introduce something new cities take it and use in the right way. They really want to do a better job. I am pretty optimistic that things are improving and in some five to ten years life will be much better in Armenian cities."
Meanwhile, rural residents in Armenian marzes have their own perspectives on how economic progress should develop in their communities.
With few exceptions, obstacles ranging from natural disaster, to becoming reliant on international handouts hampers efforts to turn life around for villagers.
The Aragatsotn village of Aragats is an exception. Unemployment is drastically lower than in other rural areas. Local and Diaspora investments have contributed to a communal self-reliance that villagers say is the result, simply, of wise management on the part of the village council.
For dozens of villages the prospect of economic development is overshadowed by the more pressing needs of daily survival.
In Berdashen (Shirak province), where a stable existence can be achieved by owning three cows, about a dozen families own 10 or more. It would be enough, says the village head Slavik Chapinian, to start a small dairy.
"If there is some financial support we can establish a milk processing and meat storing facility ourselves," Chapinian says. "But a priority for the whole village is to find a means for getting the road opened during winter."
Social Conditions
"In general everyone complains about the 'fruits' of independence," says 78-year-old Zhora Harutyunian, of Tavush. "In Soviet times every household had a telephone and now there is no communication at all. We did not need this independence. Leaving Russia (USSR) was a crime."
Without many of the essentials taken for granted outside Armenia (and other former Soviet republics) and mostly available in urban areas, such as electricity, telephones and, most importantly, water delivery, villagers universally list unemployment as their number one social ill.
An economy based on pensions has developed in most villages, as has a system of barter—grains for dairy products, for example, or one type of vegetable for another.
Republic wide, families in rural Armenia are sustained by help from relatives abroad—primarily by those who have emigrated to Russia, or by those who go there for seasonal work.
Without the support of relatives in Russia "I don't know what we would do," says Rita Harutyunian, who lives in Berkaber (Tavush). "There are no jobs, and no opportunities to create anything."
An absence of jobs, though, is not the same as not having work. With so many of the men gone to find employment abroad, life becomes especially challenging for village women.
And, despite generally worse conditions, village families tend to be larger than urban ones, meaning more work, with less assistance.
"I work from morning till dark," says Heghine Isoyan of Moreni (Syunik). "How can I find time for a job?"
In villages, too, traditional values are more entrenched meaning that, were jobs even available for women, the menfolk bristle at the notion of a woman working outside the home (except in "traditional" roles such as teaching).
Emigration—either to Yerevan or out of the country—often attracts the most educated among village youth and in many cases they are not being replaced. Faced with the hardships brought on by poor social conditions, education is not widely seen as a way out, but, rather, a hindrance that gets in the way of helping a family survive.
It is often in the lives of youth that the difference between life in villages and life in cities—especially in the capital—is most apparent.
Unlike Yerevan, where summertime cafés and year-round restaurants offer choices only once imagined, young people in the provinces have little options for socializing outside the home. And, even if they do, obligation to traditional moral values enforces limitations.
"In our place it is not acceptable for a single girl to go for a date to a café," says Grigor Dashtoyan, a resident of Gavar, the administrative center of Gegharkunik. "Her parents might condemn such behavior.
"I hope it is a matter of time until one day it will be changed. The old people just want to see youth as they (the older ones) were, and can not take easily the major changes in their families."
Major changes, indeed, continue to confront the whole of Armenia, but nowhere more so than in the little-attended rural populations where so many of its citizens face survival in obscurity.
These stories are about their challenges.
Information for this report was provided by the staff of ArmeniaNow.com.
