FBIS3-23807
"jpusr021___94014"
FBIS-USR-94-021
Document Type:JPRS
Document Title:
FBIS Report: Central Eurasia
4 March 1994
CAUCASUS
ARMENIA
Difficult Living Conditions of Ordinary Armenians Detailed
944K0723A Moscow IZVESTIYA in Russian 12 Feb 94 p 4
944K0723A
Moscow IZVESTIYA
Language: Russian
Article Type:CSO
[Article by Sergey Bablumyan and Valeriy Konovalov,
IZVESTIYA: "Between the Dram and a Tragedy"]
[Text] What keeps a man freezing in the street warm?
The thought of a warm apartment, hot shower, and warm bed
waiting for him.
In Yerevan these days, everything is in reverse.
It is depressing to return home from the frosty street. As
to
a cold bed, just the thought of it gives one the shivers. People
here do not undress when they go to bed--on the contrary, they
put on as many clothes as possible. Even a knit cap does not
quite protect one from the feel of an icy pillow. People feel
much colder in apartments at night than during the day in the
street.
And this is not just for a day or two. A constant feeling of
hunger is intolerable precisely because it is constant.
Many people here, including one of the authors of this
article, have bluish, slightly swollen hands; even a slightly
below freezing temperature causes them to swell and darken. It
is not frostbite but the consequence of constant exposure. You
acquire this condition in your apartment, not on the street.
Children and the elderly are the worst off, of course.
Everybody in Armenia suffers, however, in their own way: the
ordinary citizen, the family, the enterprise... And not just
from the cold.
A 17-point Earthquake Is No Longer Frightening
Only one person was working at the gigantic Masis Footwear
Association in the middle of the weekday: General Director
Rudolf Arutyunyan. In a gloomy mood, he was sitting in a
spacious cold office, doing calculations that were making him
even gloomier.
Until very recently, nobody ever saw him like this, and
could
not even imagine it. Energetic, self-assured seemingly under any
circumstances--this was the familiar image of him. The
enterprise, whose fame transcended the borders of Armenia, has
now been idle for weeks. The entire collective has been sent on
compulsory leave--first for last year, and immediately
afterward--for the current one.
"First, we have no raw material..." explained Arutyunyan.
One could stop right there, as in a famous joke about the
absence of bullets, but the point is that there is no one single
problem facing Masis and Arutyunyan which, had it been solved,
could make the situation easier. Yes, the leather tanning plant,
idled because of the scheduled cut-off of electricity, will get
back on line any moment now, and with this leather one could
somehow resume making footwear. But even if a miracle happened
and they began to get supply of lasts from Armavir, bottom parts
for children's shoes from Chisinau, rubber from Ukraine, raw
material and semifinished components from Kursk, Belarus, and
Italy, how are they to pay for these supplies; how to transport
the finished product; how to pay for incredibly expensive power
and fuel?
A few years ago Masis produced 23 million pairs of excellent
footwear a year, of which only 7 million remained in Armenia
while the rest were exported. Right before the stoppage of
production, annual output amounted to 5 million pairs, and now
even this level is unlikely to be achieved.
Arutyunyan adds up what the steam from the boiler house will
cost the enterprise, and how much transportation costs would be;
the bottom line is that there is no way to make ends meet, and
the enterprise cannot afford to operate at a loss.
What makes it even more painful for the director to suffer
through inaction and lack of prospects is that he has at his
disposal state-of-the-art equipment, as well as highly skilled
world-class specialists and craftsmen. The reputation of
Armenian footwear makers--as well as, by the way, clothes and
rug makers--is high around the world. The largest foreign firms
used to gladly enter into cooperation with local enterprises,
deliver machinery and semifinished products, and create joint
enterprises. The Masis trademark, for instance, was well known
and commanded respect in the world market. Now all this is in
the past.
"Of 138 large enterprises in our sector, only 38 are
operating now," Minister of Light Industry Rudolf Teymurazyan
told us. "Economic conditions make normal production impossible.
Imagine, for instance, an eight- or nine-point earthquake; at
this level a city is totally destroyed and the population dies;
if the force of the earthquake keeps increasing and reaches, for
instance, 17 points, it is not going to do any more damage than
it already has. This analogy can be applied to our financial
situation. Prices have shot into outer space. The gap between
the level of production costs and wages, the cost of fuel and
power, and the cost of transportation, on the one hand, and
potential earnings on the other may now increase to any size
without changing the situation.
What Am I To Buy With My Salary: Toothpaste or 10 Eggs?
Putting together a family budget resembles the Masis
director's sad calculations. The minimum wage in Armenia is 110
drams; the average wage is 250 drams. The difference between
them, however, much as between pensions and allowances on one
hand and the president's salary on the other, is not that
tangible. Prices are out of reach in relation to any local
income. With the level of prices and the exchange rate, 100
drams correspond to approximately one dollar. That is, most
people here have a monthly income in the range of $1.5-3.
In the stores, and it is almost the same in farmers markets,
a kilogram of beef costs 260 drams; butter--350-500 drams;
sugar--90; onions--100-150; cheese--350; and sausage--450; a
bottle of vodka costs 600 drams, champaign--800; a pack of
cigarettes--between 10 (Astra) and 60 (Magna) drams; a tube of
toothpaste--100; a bar of household soap--50; and 10 eggs--100
drams.
So, after deducting apartment rent and the cost of public
transportation, for one monthly salary one can buy here two
packs of cigarettes, or 10 eggs, a tube of toothpaste, or 300 g
of butter...
(Let us note in parentheses that here, too--although not as
frequently as in Moscow--one can see people who have enough
money to buy any food or other goods in expensive stores, and
even patronize the rare casinos and restaurants. There are, of
course, members of various sorts of mafia among them, which is
tenacious everywhere, but for the most part they are people who
do business outside Armenia, or their relatives. In Armenia
itself it is almost impossible to operate a normal business
now--limited and costly communications eat up any earnings.)
So, how do most people live, or rather, survive?
For most, the only affordable items are probably fish and
bread, which is sold by coupons--350 g per person a day for half
a dram. Potatoes used to be relatively cheap, but lately their
prices have gone up considerably, and now they cost as much as
oranges. This is the meager and monotonous ration that has now
replaced the traditionally abundant Armenian table in most
families.
There is one more expense item, as necessary as it is
burdensome: candles and kerosene.
You Want To Build a House--Build a Hospital Next To It
It is difficult to get used to cold and hunger, but people
have no choice. They have lived without heating for so long that
children who are beginning to talk do not know what the
radiators in the apartment are for. Hot showers and baths are
science fiction here. An attractive woman with traces of past
grooming confessed to us that Whiskas advertising simply
irritates her, but when she sees shampoo and bubble bath on the
screen she gets hysterical.
Actually, watching television is a rare pastime for an
Armenian these days. Electricity in apartments is turned on for
an hour and a half a day. At least in the past the utility kept
the schedule of "rolling switch-on" by microrayon; people could
prepare for it and plan things in advance. Now the schedule is
off quite frequently, and nobody knows when the lights will come
on. They live in constant readiness for a sudden two-hour-long
flash, during which you have to manage to accomplish everything:
cook food, do the laundry, recharge a battery--for those who
have one, heat water... Television is certainly not a priority
at such moments.
People have to make do with candles and kerosene cookers.
One
candle costs 15 drams; a liter of kerosene--120 drams (as a
reminder--the average monthly salary is 250 drams). Naturally,
these sources are used only when absolutely necessary.
Everything that burns goes for heating, including books. It
is rare to see a building entrance in Yerevan these days that
has a door--they have all been used up as fuel. One increasingly
sees stumps in place of trees in the city.
Lately, so-called "illegal plug-ins" have become widespread.
All sorts of ingenious and sometimes very original devices
enable city residents to plug into power lines supplying
facilities that have a regular supply of power. A local joke: A
man begins to build a house for himself, and at the same time a
hospital next to it. He is asked:
"But why do you need a hospital?"
"For an `illegal plug-in'..."
Those who have left temporarily or for good to live in more
hospitable places take a long time to shed the habits of Yerevan
life. They take matches with them when they take a bath or visit
a bathroom--to light a candle. They blow at a table lamp before
going to bed. They jump when the lights are turned on in the
apartment...
There are many who are leaving. First and foremost, they try
to get the children out--not only to normal living conditions
but also to an education. Schools and colleges are closed--at
this point until spring. The fate of an entire generation--which
means the nation's future--is in jeopardy.
It Is Cheaper To Stay Home Than Work, But Getting Divorced
Is the Best
If early retirement is an option, many leave work. The
difference between any kind of pay, as we noted above, is of
little substance, and when you stay home you save energy and
money by eliminating transportation costs.
Pensions, unemployment benefits, and allowances for families
with many children and single mothers are distributed through
the Ministry of Labor and Social Security Services. Minister
Ashot Esayan told us how meticulously this work is performed; he
also told us that lately his staff have begun to uncover
instances of fictitious divorces for the purpose of claiming
single mother benefit.
Charitable aid coming to Armenia through various channels
also is concentrated in this ministry and distributed by it.
This is not an easy task, not only because there is not enough
for everyone, but also because communications with the outside
world are difficult. For instance, they received a shipment of
kerosene cookers from the United States, but have not been able
to get the accompanying kerosene out of Batimu. However, even
moral support is of great significance here.
Here, by the way, is the account number where monetary aid
may be sent.
Yerevan, Myasnikyanskiy State Commercial Bank, 141 635.
Not Only Unhappy Families Are Unhappy in Their Own Way
One cannot explain Armenia's current troubles by the
preponderance or the legacy of the party nomenklatura. Its
members have been long removed from power. And the reforms and
democratization initially proceeded here without delay and
aggressively. Redistribution of land and decollectivization, for
instance, were implemented earlier and on a larger scale than in
other former Union republics.
But first an earthquake, and then Karabakh, the
confrontation
with Azerbaijan, and then destabilization in neighboring Georgia
became factors that overrode everything else.
Separation from the ruble zone has affected Armenia more
painfully than others. The national currency--the dram--is not
becoming a full-fledged currency and is hampering opportunities
both for enterprises and commercial traders.
Is a free market and liberalization in the economy possible
at all in this situation? Would it not be more logical, as some
opposition members suggest, to go the opposite way--tighten the
administrative reins and centralize all resources and
distribution channels?
"No," Armenian Prime Minister Grant Bagratyan told us. "Even
in these conditions a market economy is much more viable.
Expensive as food is, it is still available--and only because
the main landowner is the private farmer rather than kolkhozes.
We are now beginning privatization in other economic spheres as
well. We will stop the production decline; as to the dram's
exchange rate in relation to the dollar, we have already
stabilized it. Of course, the situation in general is so hard
for the populace that people's attitude toward the government in
these circumstances cannot be positive. It is hard to be loved
in these conditions.
The rating of the government, and of the president, has
dropped perceptively lately. Many people who just recently were
the president's ardent supporters now criticize him sharply.
People are irritated both by the optimism frequently displayed
by the prime minister and the extreme reserve in forecasts that
has been lately characteristic of the president.
"How could Levon say something like this on New Year's
Eve?!"
we heard more than once. "As if it is not enough that families
had such a meager holiday meal on the table--then the president
added insult to injury by saying that it may get worse. How can
it get any worse?"
While there is a perceptible shift in society's attitude
toward the president and the government--despite the fact that
there are no serious alternative forces in sight, because the
room for maneuver in politics and economics is too small--when
it comes to the question of Karabakh, the position remains the
same and quite unshakeable. Nobody here questions the fight to
take Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan, and the solidarity with
Karabakh Armenians remains across the board and sincere.
Armenian Minister of Defense Serzh Sarkisyan is a civilian,
a
philologist by education. He fought in Karabakh, however, and
has a reputation as a talented military commander. He reasserted
to us that the Armenian army is not engaged in combat
operations, but it is unthinkable to leave Karabakh residents
without support. By the way, his own wife and children live in
Stepanakert.
There is one more point on which probably all parties,
movements, and all strata of society agree--the necessity to
strengthen ties with Russia, the hopes for Russian aid. Many are
inclined to idealize the situation in Russian politics and the
economy--the difference in the standard of living and the
stability of the two countries' currencies is just too great.
How Long Can One Keep Pushing a Trolley Bus?
Peasants are today on much more solid ground than urban
residents. We saw proof of this in Artashatskiy Rayon. As
everywhere in Armenia, land here is mostly divided among
individual owners. All in all there are more than 300,000
private farms in the country--considerably more than in immense
Russia. These farms are small--between one and 10 hectares.
However, for such traditional sectors as viticulture and
horticulture, this size is optimal.
Despite the high cost of fuel, fertilizer, and manufactured
feed concentrates, as well as the general economic crisis,
harvest yields are high. The yield of potatoes last year, for
instance, amounted to 420,000 tonnes--a record over the past 10
years. The decline in the size of livestock herd has been
halted. The problem right now is not production but distribution
of agricultural output.
In the same Artashatskiy Rayon, for instance, which is
located quite close to Yerevan, it is still too costly for
peasants to bring produce for sale in the capital.
This is precisely why, as Minister of Agriculture Ashot
Voskanyan told us, the ministry also shifted from production
management to organizing services for peasants, distributing
their output, and pricing policy.
One way or the other, at least the countryside feeds itself
well. Only a small part of the republic's population live there,
however--most live in Yerevan and other major cities. But
private farming's potential is sufficient to provide for all
urban residents. And not only with respect to foodstuffs.
This is quite noticeable if one looks at enterprises
processing local agricultural output. Director of the Aygorg rug
factory Eduard Agadzhanov told us that since decollectivization
to this day the problem of wool procurement has ceased to be a
problem for him altogether. Private suppliers are much more
reliable and provide better quality than state suppliers.
There is a score of enterprises of completely different
specializations that have been able to find for themselves a way
out of the incredibly difficult conditions and develop
production. The Bazalt defense plant is setting up production of
trolley buses and furniture; the famous Ararat cognac factory is
expanding its distribution market; bakery plant No. 4 has
doubled the output of bread... Nevertheless, the decline in the
Armenian economy is serious and painful. It is not easy to get
reliable statistics in this respect in Armenia itself: some data
are classified, others differ tremendously from one another, or
are frankly unrealistic.
According to experts of the Moscow center SovEcon, the
picture looks like this: According to preliminary estimates the
gross domestic product for last year will amount to only 38
percent of the 1990 level, while in Russia, for instance, it
will amount to 57.6 percent, in neighboring Azerbaijan--48
percent, and in the CIS as a whole--55.5 percent; the volume of
industrial production--30.5 percent, in agriculture--55 percent,
and in construction--20 percent. In all other indicators Armenia
is also considerably behind both Russia and the CIS.
Meanwhile, outside the gates of even relatively well-to-do
enterprises there are streets with very few cars, because
gasoline is very expensive. Streets down which where one sees
people dragging bundles of firewood and brushwood. Here and
there one gets a glimpse of a scene that would be
incomprehensible, for instance, to a Muscovite: Passengers are
pushing a trolley bus, and only this way getting through what is
quite often a considerable part of the route going through a
microrayon where the electricity has been turned off--to an area
where there is light.