Write Alyona Hayrapetyan, Stepanakert resident Zaven Sarukhanyan has turned his love of farming into practice by growing beans and carrots on a small plot of land outside his apartment building.
It’s his approach to circumvent Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor, now in its seventh month, that has severely decreased the availability of food in the country.
Mr. Sarukhanyan has a larger plot of land in Nor Aresh, on the outskirts of Stepanakert, where he’s planted potatoes and other crops.
“I’m a village boy, from Khndzristan in the Askeran District. I am a lawyer by profession, but farming is my second profession. I like working with soil. The land never leaves a person dissatisfied. We get a harvest every three days. But the children have already eaten so much they’re full of beans,” says the sixty-six year-old
The urban farmer has to walk to his larger plot of land since public transportation in the Artsakh capital has been suspended due to a lack of fuel.
“At 7 o’clock in the morning, I go to the vegetable garden on foot, water it, spend almost the whole day there and walk back. I spend almost two hours on the road,” says Mr. Sarukhanyan.
He says the neighborhood kids no longer damage the garden. They now understand its benefits.
Susan Badasyan created a small vegetable garden in the yard of one of Stepanakert’s guest houses. She says that when she moved there with her son’s family, the area was filled with building debris.
