Due to the negligence of the Russian border guards, a resident of the Armenian village of Haykavan sustained a loss amounting to about 20 thousand dollars.
The carelessness and poor performance of the Russian border guards at the Armenian-Turkish border allowed unknown intruders to steal a tractor and a baler from Gor Karapetyan, a 61-year-old resident of the Haykavan village in the Shirak region of Armenia. Traces lead to Turkey.
In an interview with Panorama.am, Karapetyan said that the tractor had broken down in September on the pasture belonging to the Getashen community in the territory of the 3rd outpost. “On September 30, the hydraulic system broke down, and the mower stopped. I left them on the road in 1.5-2 km from the outpost.
Before going home, I visited the outpost and informed them that I had left a tractor and a mower at the intersection. That day, I went home at 4:20. I thought that I would go back in the early morning of the following day,” said Karapetyan.
The next day, Karapetyan arrived at the pasture to fix the broken equipment and complete the haymaking before the rains begin.
“I arrived, but they told me that their commander was away and that I’d be allowed in in a couple of hours. Before the commander came back, they took the passports, wrote everything down. The time was beyond noon.
I went to the intersection and found that the tractor wasn’t there. I could not believe my eyes. I thought: did they take away tractor?
I came closer and noticed that the mower also isn’t there. I went up the road but didn’t see any traces. Then I noticed – someone smashed the tractor’s taillights and left the fragments there.
I told the border guards about the incident. They replied that it was impossible. I showed them the traces,” said Karapetyan during the interview.
“They then contacted the outpost. Officers came and examined the traces that apparently lead towards Turkey and the village of Bazrgyan.
They immediately called Gyumri, arrived, photographed everything, took measurements. They sent a letter to the Turkish side: there was a camera recording the territory with a radius of up to 6 km. The Turkish soldiers checked and then discussed something with each other — they did not tell me anything, so I didn’t understand anything,” said the resident of the village.
After about 50 days after the incident, Karapetyan again went to the Russian border guards and asked what news there was in connection with the stolen tractor. They said that the equipment was last seen in the village of Bazrgyan. Then, the traces were lost.
“It was taken away straight from under their nose, from the place that the border guards were supposed to guard. If the equipment was stolen, then they were doing their job badly. They were inattentive. All this action took 3-4 hours: someone calmly took everything, started the tractor, and dragged the mower along the ground.
My equipment costs 20 thousand dollars. In addition, mowed grass – 600 bales – remained to lie in the pasture due to theft. The same amount of grass remains unmown. 1 bale of hay today costs 700-800 drams ($1.44-1.65). The tractor and the baler machine served as a livelihood for my family.
With this technique, I mowed the grass for others, earned money. Now, I have lost both the equipment and the income, and the grass has remained under the snow. I have to buy hay for the winter for the livestock,” listed Karapetyan his losses.
Having been deprived of his work tools, his earnings, the villager addressed the Border Department of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the Amasia department of the National Security Service, the Military Police, and then the office of the Ombudsman of Armenia.
He knows perfectly well that Armenia does not have diplomatic relations with Turkey, but he says that the Russian side does have diplomatic relations and that they can negotiate, find, and return what has been stolen.
The Russian border guards did not offer any compensation.
“I asked the question: what will we do if the equipment isn’t found? They said nothing, did not offer any options. I do not want new machines, I want my own or a similar one. Let them calculate the market value and return it,” concluded Karapetyan.
The villager believes that no one knows about the problem in Yerevan, otherwise, it would have been solved.