Tweet
AN ARMENIAN SPRING?
http://hetq.am/eng/news/25070/an-armenian-spring?.html
12:38, April 3, 2013
A landscape exuding hopelessness and catastrophe surrounds the city
of Vanadzor in Armenia. As we neared the end of the three-hour drive
from Tbilisi last week, my companions and I passed orchards reduced to
stubble, farms that could barely be called subsistence, inhabited homes
whose roofs had long since caved in, and-bleakest of all-a sprawling
wasteland of concrete rubble from the earthquake that devastated
this region in 1988. Vanadzor itself, Armenia's third-largest city,
reminded me of Russian provincial cities in the 1990s: depressing,
impoverished, grey.
Yerevan, the capital and home to a third of the country's three
million people, shows a facade of modern prosperity. The buildings
are grand, gaudy, and intact, though many of the high-end apartments
stand empty. But I was told that until a few weeks ago, a common
hopelessness seemed to hang over both Yerevan and Vanadzor.
The reasons for the hopelessness were clear. President Serzh Sargsyan
presides over a corrupt and sometimes thuggish government. A small
number of oligarchs rule the economy and control its markets. Violent
repression of protests following Sargsyan's election in 2008, combined
with the devastating impact of the global financial crisis on Armenia,
the sporadic war with Azerbaijan, and the failed border talks with
Turkey, have steadily deepened cynicism, poverty, and despair, while
propelling emigration.
See more here.
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/armenian-spring
From: A. Papazian
http://hetq.am/eng/news/25070/an-armenian-spring?.html
12:38, April 3, 2013
A landscape exuding hopelessness and catastrophe surrounds the city
of Vanadzor in Armenia. As we neared the end of the three-hour drive
from Tbilisi last week, my companions and I passed orchards reduced to
stubble, farms that could barely be called subsistence, inhabited homes
whose roofs had long since caved in, and-bleakest of all-a sprawling
wasteland of concrete rubble from the earthquake that devastated
this region in 1988. Vanadzor itself, Armenia's third-largest city,
reminded me of Russian provincial cities in the 1990s: depressing,
impoverished, grey.
Yerevan, the capital and home to a third of the country's three
million people, shows a facade of modern prosperity. The buildings
are grand, gaudy, and intact, though many of the high-end apartments
stand empty. But I was told that until a few weeks ago, a common
hopelessness seemed to hang over both Yerevan and Vanadzor.
The reasons for the hopelessness were clear. President Serzh Sargsyan
presides over a corrupt and sometimes thuggish government. A small
number of oligarchs rule the economy and control its markets. Violent
repression of protests following Sargsyan's election in 2008, combined
with the devastating impact of the global financial crisis on Armenia,
the sporadic war with Azerbaijan, and the failed border talks with
Turkey, have steadily deepened cynicism, poverty, and despair, while
propelling emigration.
See more here.
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/armenian-spring
From: A. Papazian