The town is a large community where residents mainly engage in industry and commerce, as well as in the service sector (government, sciences, cultural). The town serves as a regional administrative and cultural hub. To categorize a community as a town/city one must take the population into account and the functions it performs.

The urban district of Dastakerd is located in the Sisian region of the Armenian SSR, at the base of Mt. Ayri and the source of the river with the same name; 17 kilometers south of the regional center. On the copper and molybdenum ore reserves in the vicinity of Dastakert, the Enrichment Plant of the Kajaran Copper-Molybdenum Combine operates. (Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia)

Where can there be bread without arable land to till? Whatever such lands there were in the region have since been divided up amongst the rural communities. Dastakert has been officially registered as an urban community and gets budgetary supplements. 317 residents live in Dastakert. Most are refugees from Azerbaijan. There are three working automobiles to be found amongst all 317 residents. But it’s a city nevertheless and, all joking aside, there are ten traffic signs posted in Dastakert. Occasionally, funds from the budget are allocated for new traffic signs. Recently, town authorities have proposed that a traffic light be installed. Mayor Nayiri Filosyan rejected the notion. He argues there’s no place to install the signs and traffic light.

Only 8% of the town’s residents have jobs; mostly in the post office, the municipality and the school. There is no health clinic in the town. 44 pupils attend the local school. 2-3 children are born in Dastakerd on a yearly basis. Expecting mothers are taken to the maternity ward in Sisian. A few years back, they didn’t get an expecting mother to the maternity ward on time and the woman gave birth on the bridge just outside Dastakerd.

In 1968, during the Soviet heyday, there were 4,000 residents in Dastakerd. After the plant shut its doors in 1975, all that remained from the town’s boom period was its status as an urban community. Residents say they have only seen their MP, Aleksandr Sargsyan, only once and that was just before the last round of elections in 2008. Mr. Sargsyan was just a candidate then campaigning for votes. Residents harbor no illusions that they’ll ever see him again.

German Avagyan

See also: Bread is scare in Dastakerd

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