Wednesday, April 17 2013

Strange as it
may sound but early April saw a boom in the sales of Scotch tape in Armenia,
especially in its rural areas. Local sellers can hardly remember the times Scotch
tape was more popular than it is now. But they have an explanation for this,
and it is quite trivial: the tape is used for wrapping the big bags our
compatriots pack when leaving abroad in search for better life.

 Here are the
elementary and shocking statistics that have become quite popular in social
networks: as many as 165,274 people left Armenia
through the Zvartnots
Airport alone in Q1 2013,
with only 141,192 people entering the country during the same period. So, we
have a negative balance of 24,083 people. And this is not even a season for
labor migration. But even these sad statistics are far from reality. Besides
planes, our emigrants use buses, route taxis and own cars. And are doing it
more and more often - for Armavia’s bankruptcy has left many labor migrants
with useless tickets in hand.

 You will be shocked if you go to some villages. Many of them are almost
empty. And the most shocking thing is that many of our labor migrants are beginning
to settle wherever they work, mostly in Russia, and to take away their
families to their new homes. Left to guard the local property are mostly
elders, who prefer staying here just to receive some $200-300 a month for living from
their younger relatives abroad. So, most of our emigrants are young able-bodied
and mostly educated people. What will be the end of all this is not a
rhetorical question, but our authorities have no answer to it. The pension they
in present-day independent Armenia
pay to the former builders of industrial Soviet Armenia is hardly enough for
buying bread and cheese and paying the bills.

 The key factor forcing villagers to leave is no stable work, no money
for farming and, consequently, no chance to survive. In Yerevan the situation is a bit different: here
among those “waving goodbye” to their homeland you will see quite well-off
citizens. Their motive is different: they just don’t want to live in this
country. And the last presidential election has the last drop for many of them.
Few have been inspired by Serzh Sargsyan’s campaign slogan “Towards Secure
Armenia.” It seems our compatriots are either unwilling or simply unable to
keep step with the authors of this slogan. Meanwhile, many experts are warning
that by 2050 there will be just 1,500,000 people left in Armenia. So, it
is obvious that emigration is growing, and this growth is an indicator of some
negative processes developing in our society. A demographer or a psychologist
would need a whole essay to explain to you what is actually happening, but just
seeing what is happening at the “exit” will be enough for you to understand.