BAKU: Armenian Reporter: "Both Armenia And Nagorno-Karabakh Resemble

ARMENIAN REPORTER: "BOTH ARMENIA AND NAGORNO-KARABAKH RESEMBLE A SICK CHILD WITH A BIG HEAD AND THIN LEGS"

APA
March 2 2009
Azerbaijan

Baku. Rashad Suleymanov-APA. "The majority of the residents of the
villages of Hadrut, being an administrative part of the Nagorno
Karabakh Autonomous Region until 1990s did not return to their homes
yet. The resettlement issue is one of the biggest problems facing the
region", said Armenian Reporter in the report from Hadrut Region. The
reporter said there were only 12 thousand residents in the region,
APA reports. According to National Statistic Services of the separatist
regime, as of January 1, 2009, the population in the Hadrut region has
increased by only 12 people compared to the data of January 1, 2008.

Head of Hadrut region’s administration Valeri Gevorgyan confirms
that during the past several years the population has not decreased,
but it has only barely increased.

The aftereffects of the war are not the only reasons behind today’s
demography, the residents said. Young people do not get married
because they do not have a house. Today only 1 percent of the region’s
population can afford to construct their own houses. Thousands of
workers from Armenia’s and Nagorno-Karabakh’s villages have moved to
Yerevan or Khankendi in search of temporary jobs and are trying not
to return to their homes, where the future is not as promising as
it seems in the capital cities. And those who have the money prefer
to construct or purchase a house in Yerevan, Khankendi or any other
city rather than in Hadrut, said in the report. "Both Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh resemble a sick child with a big head and thin legs",
the reporter said. The residents of the region of Hadrut were mainly
engaged in growing grapes, but now a portion of the vineyards simply
perished. There are only 200 hectares of vineyards in the region now.

Gevorgyan said during the past several years, Armenian Diaspora
carried out works worth several million dollars in the Hadrut region.