The unprecedented heavy rains of June caused damage reaching millions of drams to Nrnadzor community, the remotest borderline village of Syunik province and the village made popular because of its pomegranates.

Rainstorms damaged crop lands, internal village roads and a part of the bridge. The village was left without electricity, 3 power poles fell down, damaging the village school’s main wall. About 400 m. of internal village road is ruined. A cowshed collapsed, and the wind blew off roofs. (No injuries were reported. A regional commission was formed and sent to Nrnadzor to estimate the damage. (The preliminary damage to the agricultural sector is estimated at 72 million drams ($240,000), while the damage to road infrastructures makes 21 million drams ($70,000)

Nrnadzor (which means a “a gorge of pomegranate’), located in the highland, is famous for its pomegranate orchards. During the blooming and fruiting seasons from a distance the village looks completely colored in red.

The fruits from their orchards, mostly pomegranates, is the only source of income for the villagers, and, to some extent, figs and grapes. Crops are either sold or bartered for food and clothes, or they make vodka and wine [with fruits] and sell those.

However, this year’s surprises by Mother Nature deprived villagers of their income that would help them to winter. It is estimated that up to 95 percent of the pomegranate crop is lost.

Village head Mkrtich Mkrtchyan says that there wasn’t rainfall early this year at all, they had droughts, the temperature on April 22 was 41 degrees Celsius.

Earlier, in winter, almost a 100 percent of fig trees were frostbitten. Before the heavy rain of June 22 the newly blooming pomegranate trees were inspiring hope of future crops.

Residents of Nrnadzor, who have no expectation of crops anymore, are now waiting for promised compensations to recover from the damage and to make it till next year’s harvest.

‘This year we expect insignificant profit from garden, which barely will be enough to pay for the water expenses,” says Nrnazor’s 34-year-old resident Mkrtich Boyajan. He estimated that the damage he incurred from rain makes some $10,000, but has no hope to get compensation from the state. “Several years ago when the gardens suffered from rain, we were told that we had to overcome the consequences of the damage caused by nature by ourselves.”

The house of Nrnadzor resident Anna Tunyan has been partly destroyed because of the rain. She has a land of 10 hectares and similarly has no hope for harvest. She says they did not expect any help in house restoration either. “We restored it by ourselves,” says the 51-year-old woman, adding that they live in such a distant place that are forgotten by the authorities.

“It’s going to be a hard year,” says the village head. “Even without this, life here is hard, all those who resist and survive are heroes, but 3 families have already left the village since January. Many others are in a ‘suitcase’ mood.”

He has concerns that if villagers don’t receive compensation, it will give rise to a new wave of emigration. “In the beginning of the year 42 families lived here, then the number dropped down to 39, 1 family is leaving, so it leaves 38, 2 are planning to, which brings it down to 36. With every passing year the number is decreasing, only 5-6 families will by no means want to leave the village.”

Nrnadzor was an Azeri-populated village during Soviet times. It was called Nyuvadi and bordered with Iran on one side and Azerbaijan on the other. During the Karabakh war Armenian troops liberated the originally Armenian settlement. The village is now bordered by Iran and Nagorno Karabakh.

During the hostilities, many houses in the village were ruined. Only 10 percent of this large area is currently populated, and, besides being a border village, it is also an abandoned one. After 1991 it was repopulated with Armenians, mostly refugees. At that time 80 percent (200 families) were forced refugees from Azerbaijan. Later many of them left the village. Now people from different parts of Armenia leave here.

Before learning anything about exact compensation figures and timeline, the village administration cleared a section of the road by their own means in order to make transportation and movement about the village possible. People are cleaning their water channels as, if they aren’t fixed, gardens will dry out.