From: dbd@urartu.sdpa.org (David Davidian)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.turkish,soc.rights.human,talk.politics.mideast
Subject: _Armenians shiver through winter of deprivation_
Date: 26 Jan 93 17:23:34 GMT
Organization: S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies


From: Boston Globe, January 25, 1993, page 1

_Armenians shiver through winter of deprivation_

By Jon Auerbach
[Boston] GLOBE CORRESPONDENT

YEREVAN, Armenia - Doctors and teachers, administrators and factory workers 
spend the morning yanking rotten planks off a destroyed home on Toumanian 
Street in downtown Yerevan.

They come here every day, dragging tattered sacks of wood away from the 
building into the snow-filled streets of the Armenian capital.

They have become scavengers because there is no heat in Armenia. Woodstoves 
provide about the only constant supply of warmth, though the lucky few who 
can afford them must rummage through the city hunting for fuel.

Some Armenians receive several hours of electricity each day, giving them 
enough power to run small heaters. Others get none. The average temperature in
a Yerevan home is 35 degrees.

Hot water, for most Armenians, is a fading memory. If the water runs at all, 
it is ice cold.

The problem of heat, however, is only the tip of the iceberg, as Armenia 
struggles to survive a winter that even the country's president calls 
"catastrophic."

Most stores are empty. Kiosks in downtown Yerevan stock four different types 
of Marlboros, Egyptian candy bars and German beer, yet the prices are 
unaffordable for all but the most privileged. A family of three is allotted 
250 grams of bread each day, about half a loaf. For many, the bread, along
with macaroni and potatoes, makes up the daily menu.

The small country, in many ways is a hostage to its geography. A Christian 
island surrounded by Muslim countries -- Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran --
Armenia has suffered since the Soviet Union began to crumble on the late
1980s. It's only non-Muslim neighbor, Georgia, is busy fighting its own war,
and the situation there is unstable at best.

There's a huge difference between the civilized world, where people take
showers, shave and change clothes, and Armenia, where we don't," said Sergey
Bablumyan, a prominent Armenian journalist. "It's hard to feel like a real 
person when you're constantly cold and dirty."

This winter's crisis came as a shock to the people of Armenia, who fought so
long and so hard for independence. Since they broke from from Moscow a year 
and a half ago, the economic situation in the small country of 3.3 million 
has deteriorated rapidly. Virtually cut off from Soviet-era state subsidies, 
the Armenians have been forced to give it a go with what little they have to 
offer the world market.

People knew the first year after independence would be a difficult one. They 
suffered through last winter, confident that the road to recovery was just 
around the corner. The country's president, Levon Ter-Petrosian, promised 
things would improve.

Instead, they got worse.

On Dec. 7, Ter-Petrosian declared a national disaster, pleading to President 
George Bush, Boris Yeltsin and the United Nations for assistance. Without fuel
or gas, he said, the country would collapse.

The United States responded with an immediate $25,000 loan to help administer 
aid deliveries and worked to expedite a shipment of 66,000 metric tons of 
wheat on top of the food and medicine already pledged. During a recent visit
to Yerevan, Richard Armitage, the US coordinator of emergency humanitarian 
assistance to the former Soviet Union, delivered a letter of support to Ter-
Petrosian from Bush.

Despite this and other support however, there are no signs of improvement.

"The situation in Armenia is catastrophic," Ter-Petrosian told the Globe in an
interview. "Our main task now is just to live through this winter.:

The Syrian-born president said many of Armenia's problems are beyond his
control, pointing out massive political unrest in neighboring Georgia and 
Azerbaijan.

The most acute problem for Armenia is an undeclared war in Nagorno-Karabakh, 
an enclave of Armenians located on the territory of Muslim Azerbaijan.
Already, in its fifth year, the war has claimed as many as 3,000 lives. Dozens 
of peace attempts have failed.

Although Armenia-proper does not play an official role in the war, Armenians
continue to provide financial and moral support to Armenians in Karabakh. But
at the same time, the government in Azerbaijan, which alleges that Armenia is 
directly involved in the conflict, has used its economic strength to tighten 
the stranglehold on Yerevan.

Until 1991, Armenia received 80 percent of its gas supplies through 
Azerbaijan, but an economic blockade has since cut that number to zero.
Because of it, Armenia was forced to rely on pipelines through neighboring 
Georgia, but political strife  there has virtually dried up those supplies, 
too.

[The Armenian news agency Snark said an explosion at a gas pipeline leading 
into Armenia cut off all energy supplies to the republic early Saturday, 
Reuters reported.

[Snark said an unidentified group blew up a pipeline inside Georgia, in an 
area populated mostly by Azerbaijanis. Georgia's main gas directorate 
temporarily closed off all gas supplies.]

Steve Tashjian, an Armenian-American from California who now serves as the
county's energy minister, paints a gloomy picture of the situation.

"From an energy point of view, things in the country are crumbling," he said,
"You know things are really bad when your sitting in the energy minister's 
office and it's 32 degrees."

Tashjian said Armenia has not received any fuel oil, which provides 
electricity, since last August and the country is now only getting about a
third of the gas supplies it needs to keep things going.

"At best people are getting six-to-eight hours of electricity each day," he 
said. "At worst they are getting none. The planning process just isn't working
any longer".

This breakdown of supplies is now creating a ripple effect throughout the
economy. With no fuel, there is no power. With no power, no production or
transport. With no production, the country is forced to spend precious capital
on imports, further drying up an already sparse supply of hard currency.

As a result, industry in Armenia is running at less than 10 percent of
capacity. Only four of Armenia's nine hospitals are working. Two of the city's
eight maternity wards are operational.

Doctors at Yerevan's Hospital No.1 operate in frigid rooms, with small 
electric heaters providing little warmth. Surgeons use vodka as an anesthetic.

And as things throughout the country get worse, Armenians are growing scared
and angry.

According to government statistics, the crime rate in 1992 doubled from the
previous year. In Yerevan, which used to feel like one big neighborhood,
people are scared to go out at night, opting to sit behind triple-locked
doors.

Many people are turning their blame towards the president. Rating polls put
his popularity in the single digits, down from 83 percent approval when he was
elected in October 1991.

But for the time being most people say there is no alternative to Ter-
Petrosian, which even the president himself admits.

"If the people were convinced that overthrowing me would make things better,"
he said, "they would do it immediately."

For the time being, it seems as though Armenians will continue to shiver and
look for wood scraps, hoping things will get better. Even if they don't, most
people say here say that the unique patience of the Armenian people will pull
them through the crisis in the end.

Sergey Hovhannessyan, the chief doctor at one of Armenia's main hospitals,
said the fact that the Armenian nation is now free and independent is enough
to get people through any hardships.


-- 
David Davidian <dbd@urartu.sdpa.org>  | "Who, after all, speaks today of the 
S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies  |  annihilation of the Armenians?" 
P.O. Box 382761                       |         -Adolf Hitler, August 25, 1939
Cambridge, MA 02238                   |          from: Nuremberg Document L-3 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet