ArmInfo. Residents of Vardenis demand that the Armenian authorities publicly admit or deny whether the latter have any intention to surrender their community.
This was stated by one of the participants of the protest organized today by residents of Vardenis and neighboring villages. Protestants temporarily closed the road leading to Yerevan, the reason for which was the abolition of the passport office in Vardenis, which, according to the authorities, is due to the transition to a digital format of services.
Residents complain that all government institutions in their area are gradually closing, and the latter are clearly not ready for digitalization. "If there is no intention to depopulate our city, let them leave everything as it is and return what they took," the protestants noted. They informed that before this, the morgue and sanitary epidemiological station in Vardenis were closed.
Noting that they elected Nikol Pashinyan to get rid of the previous authorities, the residents are wondering what the current prime minister is doing now. "Will he depopulate Vardenis now? Come to our villages! There are 50 empty houses in each village, some of them were left to work, and some of them moved to Yerevan. Let them leave ours to us!," noted the participants of the protest.
After a meeting with the regional governor, the residents decided to open the road, but on the condition that tomorrow the residents of 37 villages of the united community of Vardenis will legally formalize their demands, after which the document will be transferred to the National Assembly. "We will give them a reasonable time to get a solution for the benefit of our residents. If not, today there were 100 of us, tomorrow there could be 200 and it could reach 10,000. Let our question be discussed and a serious answer given," said a participant in the action. Otherwise, residents said they were ready for a riot.
On February 9, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan announced that the government is considering the possibility of reducing the number of passport offices in the republic and transferring many government services to electronic format.
Pashinyan noted that the optimization and closure of branches in a number of cities gives rise to speculation. It happened earlier, when the judicial department of Meghri was closed, and now, when they want to close the passport department of Vardenis. However, according to him, optimization will be carried out in many regions of Armenia, as well as in Yerevan.
If it turns out that cutting down passport offices will cause difficulties, the authorities will consider establishing mobile offices. At the same time, the government expects that this will not happen, since many documents can be received electronically, including a certificate of social services number, permanent address, etc.