And 85%-90% of men are guest workers at the moment
Gevorg Abrahamyan, a member of the council of Azatan, one of the largest villages in the region of Shirak, informed about this during a conversation with www.aravot.am. According to him, 85%-90% of the village’s men are guest workers at the moment; most of them are in the remote Yakutia, 5% are in Moscow, some of them have even reached the coast of Alaska. In the council member’s words, news of an increase in gas prices has already alerted the village’s women who reckon that instead of wasting remittances sent by their husbands on
natural gas and saving nothing, they had better join their husbands. “It is my duty, as a member of the village council, to walk down the streets of the village and ask people what concerns they have, whether the waste management was good. When I started to inquire again a few days ago, they said that they had no concerns any longer, I could stop asking, the only concern was to buy a ticket and leave Armenia. The increase in gas prices will really cost our villagers who burn gas for 7 month in a row dearly. Considering that the villagers’ production becomes cheaper day by day, prices of gas and other goods rise, will the villager wish to live in such conditions? I am sure that there will be people among villagers who will burn their homes to heat: those who have relatives abroad will leave, and those who don’t will either burn their homes or cut trees in the garden. Let’s calculate: one used to pay 100-150 thousand drams monthly to heat a house, so one had to have more than 1 million drams each season; if that sum becomes 200-250 thousand drams monthly, guest workers are not coining money in Yakutia, you know, they cannot send so much money, even if they rob the whole of Yakutia, they will not be able to pay for that. That is why they prefer to invite their families. The most terrible emigration is starting; I am talking about what I have seen. Probably they have planned not to leave anyone in this country. This place is just unbelievable; one doesn’t want to know anything. Each time you get new information, you get stressed out,” Gevorg Abrahamyan says.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
