Market relations
Recently, many people are spreading the rumor that resellers do not let
the villager penetrate the market to sell his product. The resellers
claim that the reason that the produce from the village is expensive is
because they want to receive a very large profit. “168 hours” weekly
tried to find out who were the resellers in the market who dared
increasing the price on the product received from the villager. Out of
curiosity, we chose the Komitas market (Yerevan’s 5th place market) as
the first “target”. We started from the beginning-when the villager
comes to the market with his product. The trucks carrying produce enter
the market at midnight or dawn. At this point, this is not the market
that we know. The reseller and the seller meet. It is obvious that each
of them tries to make the sale profitable for himself. The villager
wants to sell the product at a high price, the reseller intends on
selling it at a cheap price and “tricking” the villager by weighing a
couple of kilograms less. This is how the dispute between the two
starts. The products are bought either in bags or boxes. The resellers,
who are women in majority, transfer the products to the desired place
with or without the help of trucks. Once the products get placed, the
resellers start to stack them in order. The meeting of the reseller and
the villager takes place at night with the lighting provided by a lamp
and ends around eight in the morning. The market inspectors start
collecting taxes from the resellers and villagers before the break of
dawn. This is a very simple process: the inspector just goes around all
the market stands and collects the money and does not even give a
receipt to the seller. As a matter of fact, I carefully observed this
on a morning of October 2 and saw that the inspector does not give a
receipt to the seller for paying the tax. A typical reseller pays an
average of 1100 drams to the inspector for one day (650 drams is for
the rental, 200 for keeping the products at the stand for the night and
100-300 drams for using the scale). The villager is charged 500 drams
daily for bringing products to the market. This all ends at the break
of dawn. In response to why they don’t wait until the day starts for
the seller to get some profit to pay the expenses, one of the
inspectors replied: “This needs to be done at night. Besides, the money
is being collected for no reason, don’t you know?” At around nine in
the morning, the villagers were leaving, the inspectors had collected
the money and the sellers had finished placing the products in order.
Now it was time for selling.
Some stories about markets
“I have been working in the market for 27 years already. Doing trade is
not all that easy. It has its nuances. It can not be learned in a day.
I have helped so many people. They come and put some money in, buy
products, stand at the marketplace and lose from the very start. There
has to be someone to show you the way. Do you have any idea of how many
“students” I have trained? You have to work with a customer, if not;
nobody will pay attention to you no matter how long you stand there.
Your produce will deteriorate. You have to have good produce, a large
variety; you have to know the ways of talking with customers so that
your business goes well. It is hard, but as soon as you get the hang of
it, it is all smooth. There are days when I earn 10,000 drams, days
when I get 5,000 and some days when I don’t sell anything and my
produce gets rotten,” says one of the sellers. Let’s say that the
wholesale price of tomatoes was between 80-130 drams, and the retail
price was 100-160 drams. The grapes bought for 230 drams were sold at a
wholesale price of 300-350 drams. The “Kishmish” grapes were sold at a
wholesale price of 400-500 drams and the retail was 500-800 drams. The
marketplace has been divided in two-the rich and the poor. The
marketplace starts with the rich sellers. I must add that that place
looks splendid.
Here the products are more expensive and have high quality. One of the
“rich” sellers tells a story: “The other day, some guy with black frame
glasses, pointed shoes, cell phone in his hand bought 5-6 kilograms of
fruit. He didn’t even ask the price. He took out a handful of money,
picked out the 100 dollar bill and gave it to me. I told him that I
couldn’t exchange the 100 at that hour. He looked at me and took out
his money, picked out 4000 dram and handed it to me. Well, you should
have given me the 4000 in the first place, or could it be that you just
wanted to show that you are wealthy?” One of the butchers tells his
story: “It’s true, we sell the products at an expensive price. But let
me tell you, there are not that many customers who buy expensive
products. The butcher’s business is totally different. In order to be a
butcher, you must be strong and cunning. Selling meat is like playing
card tricks. You know how? Let’s say there is a bone in the meat. The
customer gets the bone and throws it away. He goes home all happy, but
when he opens the bag he sees that the same bone is in the bag,” says
one of the butchers.
To be a successful seller means to know how to persuade: “ Actor Armen
Khostikyan has been a customer of butcher David: “He did not ask me the
price. He bought, for example, four kilograms. He paid for it and left.
‘The butcher can be an actor, but the actor can never be a
butcher’-this is what Khostikyan used to say. I have many good
customers. It is very important for the seller and the customer to
trust each other so that the work will go smoothly.” One fruit seller
complains: “It is hard. How many apples do I have to sell so I can pay
the rent for the market, to buy cigarettes and keep 2000-3000 in the
house? Only 80-120 drams remain in one kilogram. The villager sells it
to me at an expensive price. We find a way to survive.” A seller from
Artashat says: “I pay a 65,000 dram water bill for one hector and
15,000 for land. I paid 5,000 dram for one bag of celitrin. I bring it
all the way to the city by car and I pay the driver too. The dry season
comes, the water does not come on time, but they still nag us with the
money. What kind of government is this? How can I sell at a cheap
price? They collect the taxes and add it to the state budget. Then they
stuff the money that is kept in the budget in their pockets. What kind
of government is this?”
The market elite
The Komitas market is a private market. It is owned by the
dashnaktsakanner (federalists). Ashot Papazyan, also known by his
friends as “padosh Ashot” or “evil Ashot”, was the first one who took
the job of owner. “168 hours” weekly tried to get some information from
Mr. Papazyan about the market activities. Without giving me any
explanation as to why he is not answering any of my questions, he
showed me the door and said: “Go and write whatever you want. What are
you going to write about? It’s a market, we work. Who will tell you
anything more?” he said ironically. We tried to ascertain some
information from some sources. They told us that the market has been
divided between Vice President of the National Assembly Vahan
Hovhannisyan and deputy Alvart Petrosyan. They say that Padosh Ashot
and vice owner Hakop Khachatryan are federalists. By the way, the vice
owner was not that sure of himself either, just like his boss: “Write
about anything you want. Many journalists write so many things but who
pays attention to that?” Sources also say that Padosh Ashot is not the
owner, but rather the “person who makes the market function.” The real
owner is vice-owner Hakop Khachatryan. The majority of the sellers
working in the market are friends of Hakop: Hakop’s brother gives
scales to sellers for 400 drams a day. The seller pays the money and
takes the scale. From what we understood, the money does not get
registered anywhere. The head of the police services Aghasi
Kirakosyan’s brother is an inspector there.
Federalist marketing
There is an average of 200-300 sellers working in the market daily.
There are many shops around the area that pay a certain amount each
month. According to our calculations, the market has a daily income of
$1000 dollars. Rumor has it that the federalists took the Komitas
market in December 2001 with difficultiy: “They did all that so that
they can keep the income received during the New Year. The former
tenant still had two years to work,” says our source. “If they check
the financial documents, they will see that the sellers have not given
one dram of tax since January 2002.” When we called Alvart Petrosyan to
find out whether or not it was true that he was one of the
share-holders of the Arabkir market, Alvart responded: “Do I look like
the kind of person who stands in a market the whole day? If you think I
can do that, then go ahead and write about it. But I am higher than
that level. I may be a little fat, but that has nothing to do with
being a market share-holder. My brother is a doctor, my son is a
painter, and my husband is an actor. Does it suit me to be a
share-holder of a market? I had heard the same thing about 2 years ago
and it had seemed as if everything would fall in place after that. I
really get offended when I hear something like that.” “168 hours”
weekly also tried to make sure who privatized the Komitas marketplace,
where and how. Press secretary of the Department Manuk Ter-Stepanyan
said that we must go to “HyeCo-op” for the answer to that question due
to the fact that they were the ones who sold all the markets. “We only
organized an auction but HyeCo-op” was the one who sold it.” We called
HyeCo-op, however the staff manager Samvel Hakobyan refused to answer
our questions. “How should I know? Who is the owner? We sold it three
years ago. Go to the market and ask the people there.” Since the owner
of the marketplace did not respond to our questions, we found out from
different sources that the “third auction price was $530,000 dollars.
How did the federalists rent the marketplace is unknown. HyeCo-op has
nothing to say because President Rafael Bagoyan has his share in the
market.”