Several days ago, one of my female colleagues said, “Women’s month has started; we won’t have to worry about our daily problems and we will be the only ones roaming the city.” She was glad that the world soccer championship had begun. Women won’t have any problems with their husbands for the next month. They don’t have to worry about anyone: if their husbands are not at home, it means that they are watching soccer somewhere with their friends. Men make food themselves in order to set their hours for eating. A couple of days ago, I left a game because I had decided to go for a walk. I rarely saw any men because they were hurrying to find a TV set somewhere to watch the game. Nothing can stop men from watching games, even the women’s city: the city is full of beautiful women. You can only watch soccer games in the evenings, but in the morning you can read newspapers and find out what is going on in your own country. You hear about some shootings, but the police didn’t do anything because they were busy watching soccer. Everyone is busy except the authorities. Neither women nor football can stop them from doing their work. They are busy with following up on what will happen to Armentel company. Its biggest shareholding company, OTE, which owns 90% of its stocks, is selling its share. There are several reasons why the authorities worry about this. At first this is the most expensive thing in Armenia. In 1998, this share of Armentel was sold to the mentioned company for $140 million. Now this Greek company is going to sell Armentel and expects to get 500 million Euro. Our government is interested in this process because has a 10% share. There is another reason why the government is interested in this. Among the potential buyers, there is an Armenian company too, SIL group, which wants to buy Armentel along with an American company. Besides that, it is interesting that the Sargsyan-Group wants to purchase Armentel too. Ex prime minister of Armenia, Armen Sargsyan wants to enter the Armenian market with the help of Alcatel company. It is hard to assume whether this is stipulated by political or economical interests. Armen Sargsyan has always been considered to be a representative from the West in Armenia. This is the reason why the local powers wishing to be supported by the West are jealous.
Now it turns out that the authorities are trying to benefit from this world soccer championship.. For instance, the CB advocated its floating rate policy in the parliament. Tigran Sargsyan came up with something again and said that these exchange rate changes were beneficial for citizens because it turns out that rich people are the ones with the most savings in dollars. This is a very interesting explanation when the government is trying to bring up bills at the parliament. According to one of these bills proposed by the government, the citizens whose incomes increase by 6.000.000 AMD have to register their incomes. According to the vice-director of the RA taxation services, there will be 20,000 citizens applying this law in 2008. This means that the monthly income of over 20.000 citizens in Armenia is over $1.500. As for Tigran Sargsyan, he petitioned people to keep their savings in AMD. If the annual incomes of most of citizens are less then 6 million AMD, we don’t understand whom he meant when he petitioned to keep their savings in AMD. All analyzers say that foreign money transfers to Armenia play a key role in our economy and in forming living standards. The annual transfers sent to Armenia, which increase the annual budget of our country, are not sent to rich businessmen. These transfers that citizens get are mainly in USD and citizens exchange the money the minute they get it.. Most analyzers are sure that this USD inflation is just a trick to buy USD for cheap prices. Tigran Sargsyan says that the citizens who followed his advice and kept their savings in AMD benefited by 30%. He didn’t mention the names of those people, otherwise we would understand how teachers receiving 50.000 drams monthly or others could save money and then benefit.
The municipality is taking advantage of its opportunity while the soccer games are going on. It turns out that while the world soccer championship is taking place, they are proposing new street projects in Yerevan. They are also planning on installing new monuments in different places. Years ago, the monuments of the Soviet period were taken out with the purpose of making new monuments in other places.
In other words, the social and political processes going on now can’t be explained just by the world soccer cup. We shouldn’t be surprised to see the USD exchange rate down to 300 AMD and different kinds of monuments in the city in a month. We shouldn’t blame women for this either. These days Yerevan is more beautiful than ever because it is a city full of women.