Armenia’s Socialist Village

Author: Lena Badalyan

04.03.17

Every morning Azat Barseghyan walks from his house to Lenin’s massive head statue down the road -- to greet him. The 75-year-old is just one of the residents of Lernamerdz, about 40 kilometres north of Yerevan village, whose reverence for Comrade Lenin has outlived the dissolution of the statesman’s Socialist dream. Reportedly only five people were members of the Communist party till 1991, but hardships of the 1990s pushed people towards a nostalgia for the USSR. Now many of 50-old villagers consider themselves communist - they commemorate  November 7, official anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and marks Comrade Lenin’s birth and death day.