Tag Archives: food

Despair hangs in the air in rural Azerbaijan

SHARABASH/Azerbaijan, SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In northwest Azerbaijan, rain coated the mountain-ringed village of Sarabash with a glossy sheen. Walnut trees glistened and the smell of grass lifted up from the wet fields. It was 8am on a weekday morning but there were no signs of commerce or industry. Just silence.

Remote and cut-off, Sarabash was not connected to the rest of Azerbaijan by road until the 1970s. Today, the track is rock-strewn and rough and the villagers feel, once again, as though they have been forgotten.

The Soviet-era collective farming system, and their livelihoods, have collapsed. Baku and its environs may glow from a beautifying oil boom that has made Azerbaijan rich over the past decade but rural areas have been left behind. Sarabash feels forgotten.

Before the fall of the Soviet Union, collective farms did well up here. In the 1960s there were 40,000 cows and dozens of farming families.

The pair of crumbling statues that stand in the fields are testament to this. They represent the two shepherds who played a part in the village being given a Communist award in 1964. Since independence the villagers admit they have fallen on hard times. Only 40 people – and one shepherd – remain.

When the school principal, Migdav Sofiev, grimaced he revealed his full set of gold teeth. He shook his head and described the desolate state of the village.

“There are only seven children at the village school and when they leave, it will close,” he said.

By comparison the town of Qax lies just 45-minutes away from Sarabash. Throughout the summer there holidaymakers eat in garishly decorated restaurants while their children play in bowling alleys and on bouncy castles.

Over a glass of ayran, a thin, sour yogurt drink; some mountain honey; a disc of tandoor-baked bread, villagers said that despite the untouched mountain scenery it is extremely rare for foreigners to visit. Tourists are keener on the amenities in Qax and they don’t bother to come either.

A sense of resigned despair lingered over the breakfast table.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Food prices rise in Armenia

AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A significant increase in the cost of potatoes is upsetting locals in Yerevan, the Armenianow website reported. It said the price of potatoes had doubled over the past month. The government, though, has said the increase in prices is purely seasonal and will drop back down.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Food prices fall in Azerbaijan

SEPT. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of food in Azerbaijan fell by 0.3% in August compared to July, the state’s statistical service told media. The fall in prices highlights the turmoil that the drop in the value of the manat and the collapse in oil prices has created.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Farm products boost Armenian GDP

AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s GDP grew by 4.4% in H1 2015, media quoted PM Hovik Abrahamyan as saying. This is better than analysts had predicted. Mr Abrahamyan said an increase in agriculture exports had helped offset a drop in economic conditions triggered by the fall in the dram currency.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

McDonald’s chooses Kazakh capital

JULY 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – US fast food giant McDonalds will open its first store in Kazakhstan this year in Astana, media reported quoting city officials. Last year McDonalds said it had agreed a franchise deal with businessman Kairat Bornabayev.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Georgians learn to love their US fast food

TBILISI/Georgia, JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — US fast-food chain Wendy’s has just opened its sixth restaurant in Georgia, Dunkin’ Donuts its eighth. Despite a general economic downturn, the fast-food scene in Georgia has exploded over the past year or so.

The lone McDonald’s in central Tbilisi had since the 1990s been the only US fast-food restaurant in the country. Now locals can choose between Wendy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, KFC, Subway and Domino’s Pizza.

And Georgians, whose culture hinges around long meals with friends and family, have turned the fast-food sector into a social scene of their own.

The fast food restaurants in Tbilisi are often filled with women dressed in high heels and their best dresses, men in buttoned-up shirts, young children in their Sunday clothes and teenagers sporting the latest fashion.

“We come here every Saturday,” Nitsa, 13, said as she started to tuck into her burger at a Wendy’s restaurant in central Tbilisi. “We like the food a lot, but we also just love to sit here and talk for hours.”

Families come for a day out and young couples for a romantic dinner. Most are also looking for a change from Georgian food.

Tamuna Mosidze, who was pregnant, had another reason for choosing to eat in one of McDonald’s fast-food restaurants.

“It’s the best service in town and you know the ingredients are quality,” she said.

And the US fast-food restaurants appear to have noticed this distinctive Georgian feel about their restaurants.

Sophie Chogovadze, head Marketing Wendy’s and Dunkin Donuts, said: “We wanted to make it about the experience, to make it more than just tasty food.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Soviet monkey colony bristles with life in Georgian region

SUKHUMI/Georgia, JULY 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The hilltops surrounding Sukhumi, the capital of the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia, holds a disturbing Soviet legacy.

This is where, in 1927, the Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy opened. It was the first primate-testing centre in the world. Its pioneering medical and behavioural experiments set it at the forefront of revolutionary scientific discoveries, such as the creation of a polio vaccine in 1961.

And in the frenzied years of the Space Race the institute became directly involved with the training of cosmonaut monkeys. Six of the institute’s primates made it into orbit.

Then came Perestroika and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then the Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy has become known instead as the Monkey Colony. It’s as if the monkeys have taken over the asylum.

A war between forces loyal to Georgia’s central government in Tbilisi and Abkhazian separatists took a heavy toll on the institute and its inhabitants. Scientists left, wages were simply discontinued and most of the monkeys either died of cold and malnutrition or managed to escape and try their luck in the lush Abkhaz forests.

Stories even popped up in newspapers of monkeys attacking pensioners as they scavenged for food.

Nowadays the institute’s cages have been slowly repopulated with sad-looking ill-nourished chimps and baboons. Past the decrepit entrance and surrounded by the crumbling buildings of abandoned laboratories a Soviet-era statue, a proud metal figure of a giant baboon, appears to be the only reminder of the institute’s former glory.

A bronze plaque lists the groundbreaking scientific achievements of the institutes. The count stopped in 1986.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)

Inflation rises in Georgia, again

JULY 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Year-on-year inflation in Georgian in May hit 4.5%, up from 3.5% a month previously, the official statistics said. This was the highest rate of inflation since September 2014 and confirmed an upward trend in 2015 driven mainly by alcohol, food and cigarettes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)

Azerbaijan bans Iran poultry

JUNE 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan banned poultry imports from neighbouring Iran after a reported outbreak of bird flu, media reported quoting a government official who works in the ministry of agriculture’s veterinary department. Iran reported bird flu in the north of the country this month.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)

UN highlights concerns over Azerbaijan’s food security

JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a new report on malnutrition and food security, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation highlighted several areas of concern in Azerbaijan. These included stunted growth for under 5-year-olds because of poor diet and anaemia among pregnant women.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)