June: 13, 2026
The residents of Armash village of Ararat marz are going to block the road and demand the government to solve the problem of mulberry export. They have not been able to export the mulberries for several days now, instead, the residents throw them away.
Armash resident Avik Mkrtumyan, who is both a producer and an exporter, informed that they demand to solve the issues of apricot and mulberry export.
“The mulberries are now falling under the trees, because we have been harvesting for 20-25 days, and we are already collecting a part of the apricots today. We collect apricots and take them to the market, but in two days it will not be possible to take them to the market or do anything else.
Mulberries are categorically not exported to Russia, you know that the road has been closed, and apricots will definitely not go either.” of 168.am Avik Mkrtumyan said in a conversation with
To the question: Are mulberries not exported to any European country, because Nikol Pashinyan and Gevorg Papoyan made such a statement at the Government session, our interlocutor answered.
“I’ll bear your pain, there is nothing like that, they just say, send a person, let them come here and see, did any of those who said something come here, did they talk to the people?”
We demand that our goods be exported, if they don’t receive anything or receive only partially, at least they give compensation to the people, give long-term or zero-percentage loans, so that people can pay off the loans they took, live in a way, until we understand what will happen next year.
Entering the European market is not so easy, we also understand that.”
Our interlocutor says that at least Gevorg Papoyan and Nikol Pashinyan should go and talk with them and make a decision.
“This compensation does not apply to mulberries, and as for apricots, only exporters are given 200 drams. If, for example, apricots have to go to Europe for 8,000 dollars per bushel, they subsidize 4,000 dollars. I am speaking now both as an exporter and as a producer. But this is not serious either, because no one is familiar with the European market, we do not know if this harvest and good of ours corresponds to European standards.
I repeat, 1 kg of goods from our place is not exported to Europe, maybe they take strawberries and flowers, we don’t have both of them,” stressed Avik Mkrtumyan.
He also said that they hoped that the export issue would be resolved, but as of now, the issue is not resolved, moreover, none of the relevant bodies are meeting with the people, nor are they agreeing on anything.
“This year, the apricot harvest is generally small, but one thing is that it should be exported.
We elected our Government, 70 percent of the village elected the Government, but today we have a problem, we want that problem to be solved. We, as exporters, have already spilled several tons of mulberries, I went to the city hall and the marzpetal hall about this issue, but I did not get any full answer. We wanted to meet with the Deputy Minister of Economy Khojoyan, but it didn’t work out, it was a meeting, we also wanted to meet with Papoyan, but we had to make an agreement beforehand.
Our question is urgent, let them know that the question is urgent, they say: wait until Thursday, how much goods should we dump before Thursday? In the past, up to 30 tons of mulberries were exported from our village, what should the people do now?” emphasized Avik Mkrtumyan.
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Direct link to this article: https://www.armenianclub.com/2026/06/13/we-are-spilling-the-beans-the-issue-is-urgent-70-percent-of-the-village-chose-the-government/