The wartime situation in Georgia has shown just how heavily people in Armenia rely on goods imported from abroad for their vital day-to-day activities.

Initial anticipations and then real shortages in supplies of petrol started to affect Armenia’s market already on August 10, shortly after the outbreak of fighting in neighboring Georgia, and lasted for several weeks. Contrary to assurances given by government officials and petrol importers, petrol was a hard-to-find commodity throughout the republic in the last two weeks of August.

Minister of Transport and Communication Gurgen Sargsyan’s assurances that there are no problems connected with petrol in the country were proved wrong by hundreds of motorists who had to leave their petrol-powered cars in their garages and choose means of public conveyance or otherwise face a tiring task of standing in a long queue to fill their tanks with a rationed supply of fuel.

In what proved to be the worst fuel crisis in Armenia since the early 1990s, petrol was either available at an extremely high price or sold to privileged customers as in old Soviet times, or alternatively sold in a rationed fashion to holders of prepaid vouchers – maximum 10 liters per vehicle. The regular price of 410-440 drams (about $ 1.36 – 1.46) per liter raised up to price of 500-700 drams (about $ 1.65-2.30) per liter those days.

All along, state structures had insisted that there was no problem connected with petrol in the country.

From August 8, Armenia’s State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition conducted daily monitoring in capital Yerevan as well as in the provinces of Lori, Shirak and Tavush regarding 35 names of 16 types of goods. According to the results published on August 21, “petrol and diesel fuel prices remained unchanged.”

Generally, the price of petrol in Yerevan did not rise. However, because petrol was in short supply it was typically sold at a speculative price of 500 drams (or about $1.65) per liter, while in some regions one liter of petrol could be purchased only at a price twice as high.

Karen Grigoryan purchased petrol at a filling station in one of the villages of the Armavir region at a price of 700 drams (or more than $2.30) per liter (or, relevant to North American prices, about $9 per gallon).

“What can I say? Otherwise I would have remained stranded on my way back. I could not get any petrol in Yerevan, I was lucky, I bought five liters, they did not sell more. And that was hardly enough even for one day and after that I had to refrain from driving to work,” Grigoryan said.

Artur Babayan was also among motorists who had to “ration” the use of their private cars in view of the fuel crisis. “The two gas stations where I usually filled my car did not have petrol at all, nor was there any petrol left near where I work – the South-Western District of Yerevan, so I could not buy petrol.”

Commenting on the situation in Georgia still in the middle of August, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan also spoke about the petrol problem.

He urged people not to be worried by the deficit and not to store up petrol for future use.

“Naturally, military operations give rise to expectations and there was a moment two days ago when our citizens began to purchase three or four times the amount of petrol they customarily purchase on an average day. Managers of filling stations operating in the republic said that today (August 14) they had no sale of petrol – because people had purchased so much petrol in the two previous days that it would perhaps last them for a week,” Sargsyan said.

Managers of the Flash Company, a leader on the country’s petrol market, told media on many occasions that there was no short supply of petrol and that the shipment of Armenian cargoes from Georgia was unimpeded. But such reports sharply contradicted the reality of long lines and higher prices at petrol stations.

And City Petrol Service (CPS) network deputy director Arayik Hovhannisyan said in an ArmeniaNow interview that media were the main culprit for what he described as the “petrol panic” in the country.

“Instead of telling people that there is no shortage of petrol, that there is no need for panic, media created panic themselves. And then, no matter how hard you explain that there is petrol, they do not believe, they come and form queues, buy a hundred liters of petrol at a time.”

“Even propagandists have to be sent to filing stations to explain that there is no need to buy petrol by the hundred liters. One wonders what do they do with that 100 liters if they come two hours later and buy more,” Hovhannisyan added.

Queues of dozens of cars near CPS and other gas stations in the city disappeared in the last days of August, as trainloads of petrol held back in Georgia because of railway damages finally reached Armenia.