Epress.am News from Armenia
Hoping to draw attention to their problem, hundreds of farmers of Armenia's Kaghtsrashen village blocked the entrance to the village school on Wednesday to protest against local Vinar winery’s continued failure to pay off its debt to the villagers for grapes that were purchased from them last autumn. If not paid, the protesters pledged that they would repeat their action on Thursday morning.
“Everyone has gathered in the village – the police, the authorities – and everyone has promised that the issue would be resolved. But we pledge that we'll block the school entrance on the Last Bell (a year-end celebration in schools that usually falls on May 25), too, [if the money is not paid,” protester Zakar Petrosyan told Epress.am.
Note, after an unusually rich harvest in the fall of 2015, the farmers of Kaghtsrashen had to sell the grapes to the local Vinar winery for as little as 40 drams per kilogram. The company, however, failed to pay the grape growers money in time, causing them to hold a number of protests in front of the Armenian government building and the presidential residence in Yerevan.