They promise to repair the road at every election; after being elected, they say that one needs large sums for that.
The village of Herher, region of Vayots Dzor, is only 18 km away from the town of Vayk, but no taxi driver who knows the vicinity will drive you to the village, even for 10 thousand drams. If he agrees, that 10 thousand drams will cost him dearly; after driving the car to the village, the driver will have to pay threefold-fourfold more for fixing the effects of the Herher road on the car. Not to mention the danger of falling into the gorge and being squashed by rocks falling off cliffs. The destroyed, in some places, collapsed Herher road with one-meter-wide pits has been a headache and a trouble for villagers for decades and an obstacle in the way of the village’s development and a brilliant opportunity for candidates for president and MP to exploit the issue of its repair at every election. According to residents of Herher, as opposed to the regional administration of Vayots Dzor that doesn’t venture to mention specific dates, before which the road will have been fully repaired, due to the lack of money, Ashot Arsenyan, an MP elected from Vayots Dzor, raised the issue of the road again at the latest meeting with residents and promised to solve it. There is no country road of such importance in the republic. The last time the Herher road, which also leads to the village of Karmrashen in this region, was partly repaired was in the 1980s. The asphalt coverage of the road is worn out; there are almost no curbs along the full length of the road. The most part of the road stretches along the Herher River at a height of some 75-80 meters. The section of the road that stretches along the edge of the Herher Reservoir is the most dangerous, since rocks fall off cliffs all the time, in particular in spring and after rains, as a result of which in some sections of the road, only one car can pass. The edge of the road adjacent to the river, being deprived of any kind of protection, is crumbling, causing collapses in some places. According to residents of the village, a car nearly fell into the gorge recently; it hung over the gorge in the collapsed section of the road and, fortunately, remained like that. In residents’ words, such a condition of the road causes many socio-economic problems. The village hasn’t been developing for decades, since just because of the road, many businessmen, company owners and serious trade companies often refuse to come to Herher and Karmrashen and negotiate with self-employed farmers of the village on certain issues. Car owners are particularly discontent, since they spend a few times more money on car maintenance because of the road. And low cars that are not high above the ground cannot come to the village. The village of Karmrashen is 7 km away from the village of Herher and is connected with the other settlements of the country by that road. According to the estimates of residents of Herher, the two villages combined have 1500 residents, but the communities cannot, at least, partially repair the road on their own. The residents of Herher told us that although their village chief had the most dangerous parts of the road filled with earth last year, that earth flowed away with water in the rainy and snow melting season, and the pits have opened again. The road is not the only problem that troubles residents of Herher; the external water grid providing Herher with drinking water is around 50 years old. The pipes are of zinc or asbestos, in some places, damaged, and this poses a sanitary threat for residents. The length of the water pipeline is 12 km, and about 330 farms use that water pipeline. The community has many other problems; there is no house of culture, kindergarten, there is a lack of school equipment, agricultural equipment, seeds etc. In response to Aravot’s question when they would solve the issue of the road that was so important for those people, Aram Grigoryan, the deputy governor of the region of Vayots Dzor, didn’t mention a specific date; he just said that this problem was included in all programs as a priority. “You are right that it is an unbelievably bad road, and that road is number 1 problem of our region. There are rockslides; there are just portions of asphalt. The programs of the coming year are not finalized, but I think that this issue will be included in the program of the coming year, 2014, and funds from the treasury will be allocated for that.” In response to our question whether it wasn’t possible to find a temporary solution until the major repair could be done, the deputy governor said: “Such things are usually planned; it is included in exploitation. However, exploitation of the road is quite hard; the road should be thoroughly built, repaired, its different problems should be fixed. After that it will be possible to normally exploit it and clearly estimate the cost of exploitation. It will not be too costly, but exploiting that road today means spending money on its building.” In Aram Grigoryan’s opinion, the village’s “other problems are not as conspicuous as the problem of the road,” the major repair of which is quite costly, according to the deputy governor. In response to a question whether they had already estimated how much money was required, Mr. Grigoryan said that they hadn’t done it yet, but according to rough estimates, more than one billion drams would be required.
LUSINE BUDAGHYAN
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