Georgians, Armenians Bemoan Border Restrictions
Villagers on both sides of the Armenian-Georgian border say new controls are ruining their lives.
Georgians, Armenians Bemoan Border Restrictions
Villagers on both sides of the Armenian-Georgian border say new controls are ruining their lives.
Dzyunashogh and Irganchai, villages in Armenia and Georgia respectively, are only three kilometres apart, and have always been perfectly suited for trade. Dzyunashogh produces meat, hay and dairy products, while Irganchai can sell fruits, flour and vegetables.
But business between the border villages has been dealt a blow by new rules to prevent smuggling, which mean that villagers must make a 200-kilometre round trip to see their neighbours.
The Armenian and Georgian government finally starting enforcing border controls between the two villages around 18 months ago, more than 16 years after they won independence. They say that the tougher border policing is necessary to ensure national security, but the two villages’ very existences are threatened as a result.
“Imagine, now I will have to go about 100 km instead of 3 km,” said Sashik Grigorian, a 54-year-old resident of Dzyunashogh, as he sat with his wife Angin.
“The authorities thought that big money was being made here, but these few boxes of fruit were only coming to us.”
It has been two years since the Grigorians last planted a large potato crop, as they no longer have anyone to trade with.
“We sold them milk, cheese, butter, meat, wool, potatoes,” said Angin Grigorian nostalgically in words echoed across the border in Irganchai by Selim Osmunov, whose home was almost visible from where the Grigorians sat but which was no longer approachable.
“We took them fruit, vegetables, flour, even clothes and other goods,” he remembered.
“We have no roads, no water, and nearby is the Armenian border. God prevent us getting sick of this life, or our village will slowly empty. Life in Irganchai is a very difficult business, and it’s no accident that they say Georgia starts and ends with Irganchai. We are the gatekeepers of this country, we are right on the border.”
Officials say they sympathise with the villagers, but point out that there are already three official border crossings between the two post-Soviet republics, and that the area between the villages is environmentally protected, meaning that a regular crossing point cannot be built there.
“The process of delineating the borders helps to secure state security. This demarcation process happens in all countries, independent of whether the neighbouring country is friendly or not,” said Tigran Balaian, spokesman for the Armenian foreign ministry.
“The villagers from Dzyunashogh can trade and talk with their neighbours, but only if they cross the state border legally.”
But villagers in Irganchai say the roads connecting them to other places in Georgia are so bad that they are effectively now cut off for much of the year.
“In winter our village is isolated from the rest of Georgia. There is just one road to the regional centre, and that’s destroyed. Before we went to Tbilisi by going through part of Armenia, it was quicker. And now we can’t even put our noses across the border,” said Yakir Khalidov, a vet with 20 years experience and who once treated animals in both villages.
And it is not only medical care that animals are now lacking. The border has also shattered the agricultural balance in the region.
“Our livestock is used to going to pastures over there. Now if our cows go over to that side then the Armenian border guards arrest them and don’t give them back,” said Safir Valiev, one of Khalidov’s neighbours in Irganchai.
“Hungry animals go where the food is. How can a cow know where there is a border, and where there isn’t?”
The problem works in reverse for the Armenian village, where suddenly they have no one to help with the hay harvest.
“In the harvest season our village used to be full of them,” said Borik Ghevondian, who used to let villagers from Georgia cut his hay in return for half of the crop.
Now he is forced to cut the nine hectares on his own, spending money on a tractor and fuel to get the work done on time. And he has been left 300 US dollars out of pocket by his inability to regain a loan he gave to some of his neighbours across the border.
“I can’t imagine how to get the money I lent them,” he said.
The head of the village administration in Dzyunashogh said the numbers show people are now steadily leaving their homes in search of a better life elsewhere in Armenia. In 2005, before the trade had been cut off, there were 91 farmers and 285 families. In the next three years, the number of farmers fell by 16, while 48 people left the village.
Khachik Vardanian was one of the top salesmen in Dzyunashogh, but has lost his trading contacts with counterparts across the border. He used to grow 10-15 tonnes of potato per year and then exchange them for flour, oats and wheat. “I told my partners in Irganchai about the products I needed and they brought them at a low price,” he said.
Villagers in Dzyunashogh even used the services of Georgian mobile operators to communicate with their neighbours in Irganchai at a low cost.
Khachik still calls his neighbours but now he can't take and send orders any more. “I don’t want to smuggle,” he said.
But business between the border villages has been dealt a blow by new rules to prevent smuggling, which mean that villagers must make a 200-kilometre round trip to see their neighbours.
The Armenian and Georgian government finally starting enforcing border controls between the two villages around 18 months ago, more than 16 years after they won independence. They say that the tougher border policing is necessary to ensure national security, but the two villages’ very existences are threatened as a result.
“Imagine, now I will have to go about 100 km instead of 3 km,” said Sashik Grigorian, a 54-year-old resident of Dzyunashogh, as he sat with his wife Angin.
“The authorities thought that big money was being made here, but these few boxes of fruit were only coming to us.”
It has been two years since the Grigorians last planted a large potato crop, as they no longer have anyone to trade with.
“We sold them milk, cheese, butter, meat, wool, potatoes,” said Angin Grigorian nostalgically in words echoed across the border in Irganchai by Selim Osmunov, whose home was almost visible from where the Grigorians sat but which was no longer approachable.
“We took them fruit, vegetables, flour, even clothes and other goods,” he remembered.
“We have no roads, no water, and nearby is the Armenian border. God prevent us getting sick of this life, or our village will slowly empty. Life in Irganchai is a very difficult business, and it’s no accident that they say Georgia starts and ends with Irganchai. We are the gatekeepers of this country, we are right on the border.”
Officials say they sympathise with the villagers, but point out that there are already three official border crossings between the two post-Soviet republics, and that the area between the villages is environmentally protected, meaning that a regular crossing point cannot be built there.
“The process of delineating the borders helps to secure state security. This demarcation process happens in all countries, independent of whether the neighbouring country is friendly or not,” said Tigran Balaian, spokesman for the Armenian foreign ministry.
“The villagers from Dzyunashogh can trade and talk with their neighbours, but only if they cross the state border legally.”
But villagers in Irganchai say the roads connecting them to other places in Georgia are so bad that they are effectively now cut off for much of the year.
“In winter our village is isolated from the rest of Georgia. There is just one road to the regional centre, and that’s destroyed. Before we went to Tbilisi by going through part of Armenia, it was quicker. And now we can’t even put our noses across the border,” said Yakir Khalidov, a vet with 20 years experience and who once treated animals in both villages.
And it is not only medical care that animals are now lacking. The border has also shattered the agricultural balance in the region.
“Our livestock is used to going to pastures over there. Now if our cows go over to that side then the Armenian border guards arrest them and don’t give them back,” said Safir Valiev, one of Khalidov’s neighbours in Irganchai.
“Hungry animals go where the food is. How can a cow know where there is a border, and where there isn’t?”
The problem works in reverse for the Armenian village, where suddenly they have no one to help with the hay harvest.
“In the harvest season our village used to be full of them,” said Borik Ghevondian, who used to let villagers from Georgia cut his hay in return for half of the crop.
Now he is forced to cut the nine hectares on his own, spending money on a tractor and fuel to get the work done on time. And he has been left 300 US dollars out of pocket by his inability to regain a loan he gave to some of his neighbours across the border.
“I can’t imagine how to get the money I lent them,” he said.
The head of the village administration in Dzyunashogh said the numbers show people are now steadily leaving their homes in search of a better life elsewhere in Armenia. In 2005, before the trade had been cut off, there were 91 farmers and 285 families. In the next three years, the number of farmers fell by 16, while 48 people left the village.
Khachik Vardanian was one of the top salesmen in Dzyunashogh, but has lost his trading contacts with counterparts across the border. He used to grow 10-15 tonnes of potato per year and then exchange them for flour, oats and wheat. “I told my partners in Irganchai about the products I needed and they brought them at a low price,” he said.
Villagers in Dzyunashogh even used the services of Georgian mobile operators to communicate with their neighbours in Irganchai at a low cost.
Khachik still calls his neighbours but now he can't take and send orders any more. “I don’t want to smuggle,” he said.
