“If after 20 days the patient gets well, it’s fine, if not, we arrange a burial" (video)
Residents of Bagaran, village bordering with Turkey, have to listen to Mullah several times a day. Even the children know the time and purpose. Instead, people in this village cannot say when for the last time they heard church bells ringing and a service, “We have neither church, nor chapel to light a candle,” says villager Gevorg Galoyan. People created their own oratory. But this is not the only and the most concerning issue in the village. Here people cannot remember drinking water from a tap and they have never had gas supply. And the problem with transport cannot be expressed in words. “Before the elections a bus started operating, but it functions every other day. We have loans, which must be paid, but we are not able to go and pay them,” noted villager Margarit Ghazaryan. The roads are also in hopeless condition; villagers don’t buy cars, as they know they will not operate for a long time. There is no hospital in Bagaran or in any other close residence. People here joke that the patients already know their fate, “If after 20 days the patient gets well, it’s fine, if not, we arrange a burial,” says Kamo Grigoryan. Bagaran residents say that no wedding is held in their village, “How can we hold a wedding ceremony? Men abduct their wives, I also abducted my wife,” he adds. For already several years hail has damaged apricot harvest here, and the onion isn’t sold. Many people leave abroad for seasonal work. They leave and then take their families with them. Bagaran, which is situated on the right bank of Araks, is emptying day by day.
