How reliable is the source of this news?
BTW. Hetq and Footprints seem to be one and the same, one being the Armenian word for the English “footprints”.
This sounds like what is known in the English an “urban legend”, like “someone told me what someone had told them”, etc.
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http://hetq.am/en/society/46435/Is Armenia Really Not a Country?
[ 2011/01/08 | 11:40 ] society
Last night a friend came over and gave me some disturbing information. He had been talking to someone earlier in the day who said that there are only 1.5 million people left in the Republic of Armenia.
Moreover, people are leaving en masse. He said that there was at least one instance of an entire village moving to live somewhere in Russia. Everyone in the village closed their homes and relocated to an area where they were provided with new houses and land to cultivate. But he could not remember the name of the village and couldn’t identify its location, and he didn’t know exactly where in Russia everyone had gone.
Read full story at Footprints
And the rest from Footprints;
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You hear the same story about Gyumri. People are being approached to give up everything they have and move to somewhere in Russia, where they will be provided housing and work, fulfilled by signing some sort of contract. Who was sponsoring this initiative–Russian private interests, Armenian or from elsewhere–wasn’t clear at all.
Naturally I cannot attest to the reliability of this source but will say that I think the new population figure is a bit of a stretch. It was only five or six years ago when I started hearing unofficial statistics that the actual number of people living on Armenian soil was 2.5 million. It seems this number, although unofficial, has become an accepted reality, as I’m hearing not only Armenian citizens telling me this, but even people living in the diaspora who are close to me acknowledging the same. The regional populations are indeed thinning, but to say that 1 million people have managed to clear out in five years’ time without the government realizing what was happening or even giving a damn that it was is not logical. My friend’s argument is that people are forced to leave because there is by and large no economic development in rural areas, and there are no jobs to be had, both of which are certainly true. He pins sole blame of everyone’s economic distress on the government and scorns it for not addressing the problem of mass exodus as officials are too focused on lining their own pockets than to be concerned about how the other half lives.
Let’s assume that state officials, from the president down, only care about exploiting their positions to make money. In order to have a country to rule over, you need citizenry to form an active society that must be governed. Even if government officials didn’t give a damn as my friend claims, it would not be in their interests to let another million people leave their homes. In order to have power you need to rule over a populace and assert that power and prove to neighboring countries that you do indeed have power to wield, that your country has significant importance in the region.
Regardless of how authentic that information he relayed to me is, the main problem is that this issue is being discussed in closed circles via rumor as fact. This is most troubling to me because now my friend believes there is nothing left to do but to leave the country as he sees no future here. And he is middle class—he is not necessarily hurting for work being a professional photographer sought after by foreign news agencies. He is giving up after prolonged exposure to self-defeating, bitter rhetoric that only fuels apathy, as are countless others, without doing anything to bring about good governance. The country is not a country.
I mentioned to him in our heated conversation that citizens need to start engaging their lawmakers, they need to meet with them as special interest lobbying groups or individually, to make them understand that elected parliamentarians are in office to serve the people. He shrugged off what I was telling him, claiming that a parliament member would only keep his door closed and refuse to talk with his constituents. Without even making an attempt to try, that it is even futile to do so, he has convinced himself that lawmakers don’t want to do their jobs. Moreover, he is convinced that nothing good can ever come from the current government, or apparently any government for that matter.
He is not alone, and that’s where the real problem lies.
Edited by Arpa, 08 January 2011 - 09:44 AM.
, I'm no less dissuaded on returning back to our Hayrenik. I returned last year and have a deep urge on returning permanently, hopefully within a few short years, God willing.
