The printing-house prints nearly 30 newspapers, including “168 Hours”, “Aravot”, “Golos Armeni”, “Azg” and others. The printing-house claimed that the reason that there were no imports was that the “Ilyichyevisk-Poti” ferry-boat isn’t working. But freighters say that the boat is working and they are transporting cargo. Nothing, not even poor weather conditions, can take a long time. The ferry-boat is Ukrainian and transfers Armenian and Georgian cargo to the Poti harbor. The current situation with the Ilyicheyevisk is the same as that of two months ago and now the same thing is going on at the Russian Novorosisk harbor. After the closing of the Higher Lars passing point on the part of Russia, transfer of Armenian cargo has been in a terrible situation. The cargo from Russia and other countries make it to Armenia through the Black Sea and the Poti harbor, which is unsuitable because it’s expensive, a waste of time and it’s a path that creates problems, compared to the Higher Lars road. The Georgian and Ukrainian cargo are loaded first at the harbor and then the Armenian cargo. In this case, Georgian-Ukrainian relations are better than the Armenian-Ukrainian relations, or even Armenian-Russian relations. Armenian cargo has been accumulated at Novorosisk since June, including three carriages of 150 tons of printing paper for “Tigran Mets”, which still haven’t made it to Armenia. Two months ago, when Russian-Georgian relations turned tense, Russia refused to accept and transport the cargo received at the Poti harbor, where there was also Armenian cargo. The Armenian freighters were forced to take their cargo from Novorosisk to Ilyicheyevisk so that they could at least have the cargo reach Poti through Ukraine and then Armenia. Currently, there are 200 Armenian carriages, including carriages with printing paper waiting at Ilyicheyevisk. Even if the carriages get on the ferry-boat on December 6, then they’ll make it to Armenia in ten days, which is December 16.
So, in the best case scenario “Tigran Mets” will have nothing to do for at least a week. In the worse case scenario, there will be nothing to do for an uncertain amount of time, as stated in the announcement. “The railroad was the cheapest and most suitable means of transportation for us. The cargo from the Russian factories reaches the Ukrainian Ilyicheyevisk harbor by the Russian train. Then they reach Poti with the ferry-boat and then the Armenian railway brings the cargo to Armenia. We can’t make it so that the Armenian carriages get on the ferry-boats quickly. The “Armenian Railways” company deals with that. If there were a car, we would be able to do something,” says director of “Tigran Mets” Vrezh Markosyan.
No matter how surprising it sounds, automobile goods manage to get loaded in the ferry-boat at the Ilyicheyevisk harbor, but not the carriages. Paper makes it to the harbor by train from Russia. One of the directors of the freighter companies, who wished to stay anonymous, told us during an interview that there is some problem with the cargo between Ukraine and Russia. For some reason, Ukraine doesn’t want to accept and transfer the Russian carriages, including the Armenian cargo. That’s why there’s an accumulation of carriages.
So, it turns out that as soon as Russia strains relations with its neighboring countries in special fields, Armenia immediately falls into a bad situation, in this case a blockade. The freighter also said that based on his data, these days the Ukrainian ferry-boat functions with the order of the Georgian government and is transferring military equipment from Ukraine. That’s why there are accumulations of carriages at Ilyicheyevisk. Head of the “Gind” printing-house Karen Avetyan said that this is not the first time that issues like this come up. That’s why in times like these, he tries to save paper so that there won’t be any problems later. As a matter of fact, “Gind” has extra paper that will last for 2.5 months. While talking with Armenian businessmen, they mentioned their main concerns and said that the best way to get out of the situation would be to have Armenia, or one Armenian businessman, have his own ferry-boat, which would only transport Armenian cargo. The Armenian authorities thought about doing this about two years ago, a new Russia-Poti line was opened, which was supposed to serve the “Caucasus” ferry-boat. However, that project didn’t wowrk out. It’s quite possible that Russia once again got in the way so that Armenia can be dependent on Russia for this too.
It’s also quite possible that the Armenian authorities made this whole thing up about the printing paper deficit as a “cover-up”. In other words, they’re trying to find ways to free themselves from the printing press until the elections. Armenians should be surprised if things like this happen continuously in order to have the paper deficit coincide before or after the first days of the parliamentary elections.