“…half of the population lives below the national poverty line, set at 12,600 dram (21 United States dollars) per month—the cost of the minimum average ‘consumer basket’; approximately seventeen percent of the population is considered ‘extremely poor,’ living on less than 7,200 dram ($12) a month.”
-- V.L.
Central Yerevan looks more and more prosperous every year. Walking past the Hugo Boss boutique near the opera, a diasporan visitor might be forgiven for skipping the anemic offerings of the Yum-Yum coffee-and-doughnut shop and taking instead a sidewalk seat at the nice restaurant around the corner.
While a handsome waiter or waitress fetches surj, the English-speaking visitor might open the latest issue of Armenian Forum, picked up earlier in the day from the lovely Artbridge bookstore café established by a Persian-Armenian woman from Los Angeles.
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