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Golden Season: Banner year for Armenia's national fruit
Armenia
Sunday 06 July 2008
The apricot orchard of 56-year-old Edik Vardanyan is bursting with the abundance of its crop. The fine fruits of nature’s tiny tasty suns play a hide-and-seek game as they skillfully escape human hands reaching out for them. But it’s all the same – in the end Edik manages to pick a bucketful of apricots and get down from the tree.
“I had planted 130 trees of this orchard with my own hands 17 years ago. I sit down and talk with each of these trees separately. This is where I find my peace,” says Edik, adding proudly: “[A few times] I happened to gather up to 15 kilograms of apricot from one branch.”
He remembers the banner years for the orchard – 2000, 2005 and 2008. That is, in 14 years the orchard yielded good crops only three times. Every time the overall income from the orchard made US$3,000, but this year it will reach US$5,000.
Edik is from the village of Jrashen, which is in Armenia’s Ararat province. The village’s apricot orchards stretch by the hectare. It’s harvest time now. Many of the villagers have called their relatives and friends to help them. Many have hired labor.
Zaven Vardanyan, 54, says that the tastiest apricot in Armenia grows in their village and that he will get three tons of apricot from his half a hectare orchard. Instead of asking questions, he advises that we should help him. We get down to work, but he immediately complains: “No, that won’t do. This is not how you pick an apricot. First you turn it and then carefully pick it so that it won’t give a crack. It is better you do your work.”
“I had planted 130 trees of this orchard with my own hands 17 years ago. I sit down and talk with each of these trees separately. This is where I find my peace,” says Edik, adding proudly: “[A few times] I happened to gather up to 15 kilograms of apricot from one branch.”
He remembers the banner years for the orchard – 2000, 2005 and 2008. That is, in 14 years the orchard yielded good crops only three times. Every time the overall income from the orchard made US$3,000, but this year it will reach US$5,000.
Edik is from the village of Jrashen, which is in Armenia’s Ararat province. The village’s apricot orchards stretch by the hectare. It’s harvest time now. Many of the villagers have called their relatives and friends to help them. Many have hired labor.
Zaven Vardanyan, 54, says that the tastiest apricot in Armenia grows in their village and that he will get three tons of apricot from his half a hectare orchard. Instead of asking questions, he advises that we should help him. We get down to work, but he immediately complains: “No, that won’t do. This is not how you pick an apricot. First you turn it and then carefully pick it so that it won’t give a crack. It is better you do your work.”
Hired workers are paid 3,000 drams (about US$10) and one bucket of apricots a day for their work.
