In Nerkin Khndzoresk, 36 Families Live and Today, 34 of Their Men Face Charges: Zohrabyan

All men in Nerkin Khndzoresk are on trial. This was reported on Facebook by former MP Naira Zohrabyan.

“In a moment, one of the most absurd court cases of our time will begin at the first instance court in Goris. In the Syunik village of Nerkin Khndzoresk, located just 600 meters from Turkey, there are 36 families, and today, 34 of the men from those families are facing charges that could lead to 2-7 years of imprisonment. The former village mayor of Nerkin Khndzoresk, Martun Arzanyan, has sued his own villagers. Arzanyan was the mayor of Nerkin Khndzoresk since 2005, initially seen walking around with the portraits of Kocharian and later Sargsyan in his pocket. However, in 2018, he quickly became the first ‘Sargsyan rejector’ of the village and the only member of the ‘My Step’ party.

Over the years, this cunning former mayor has managed to illegally appropriate the village's entire 474 hectares of agricultural land through false and illegal auctions, of which the villagers were unaware. After a persistent struggle, the villagers succeeded in reclaiming 200 hectares from Martun Arzanyan, yet, according to the villagers, the 274 hectares obtained through the fake auctions remain under the control of Martun’s clan.

In fact, this village's modern-day “Marquis Carabas” has sued all the men in the village because the villagers, who submitted applications to the velvet authorities post-revolution in the name of love and tolerance, expecting that “Papikyan will come and resolve the issue,” found that Papikyan never arrived. Thus, the villagers decided not to allow Martun's clan to exploit the unlawfully seized lands. They cultivated, harvested, and stored their crops of wheat, barley, and hay while awaiting the court’s decision on the illegal auctions.

However, today, at noon, the court in Goris will not address the issue of Martun Arzanyan’s years of false auctions for the appropriation of all farmland but rather the matter of not sharing the harvest from those lands with his fellow villagers. I just spoke with the residents of Nerkin Khndzoresk who were sipping a cup of coffee before heading to Goris for their trial. Meanwhile, the enemy is only 600 meters beyond the village, and several times, villagers have caught Turkish individuals in their grocery stores.

How long this judicial absurdity will continue is unclear, but until the fate of the unlawfully seized wheat and barley by Marquis-Carabas-Martun Arzanyan is determined, the self-defense of the village will remain on the shoulders of the women and children, who recently planted 600 trees in the village as a defensive barricade to prevent the enemy from monitoring the movements around their homes.