Pareshen Village

Where is Pareshen? Pareshen is situated in the south eastern corner of the southern Hadrout region of the NKR (Nagorno Karabagh Republic). Pareshen is adjacent to Akn and Norashen; the sister village built with the resources of AGBU France and facilitated by the NKR government. The name Pareshen, submitted by Professor Khachadour Pilikian of London UK, was selected from a list of 20 entries in a village-naming competition organised by AGBU London.

 What kind of homes? AGBU London has planned to build 20 homes in Pareshen. This is the minimum size for a viable community. To the right, you see a model image of  the homes being built, each covering 73 square metres of living space and consisting of  two bedrooms and a living room/kitchen. As gas is not the available fuel outside the main towns, the villagers prefer to use the customary portable wood fired stoves for both  cooking and heating the inside in the winter and for "alfresco" cooking and dining on the porch/balcony in the summer. 

Each home benefits from an inside bathroom and an outside convenience (sceptic pit kind); an arrangement preferred by the villagers  for hygenic reasons. The land plot incorporates a garden and a cattle shed for the housing of  livestock that the villagers will acquire with the government grants due to them under the agreement signed with AGBU London.

The houses have been designed by a local firm of architects and are being built by a local construction firm, hiring a local workforce (see the Organization page) and using as many of the local materials as available including the local white stone and cement sourced from Armenia. The wooden doors and windows are also locally produced with the roofs made from corrugated, zinc coated metal sheets. 

How is the project being managed? The AGBU project management team in Armenia and Artsakh monitor progress against the AGBU project quality and delivery plans, budgets and technical specifications while  the NKR Ministry of Construction and the Architect of the Hadrout region supervise and enforce the regulatory standards and requirements.

The NKR Government Department for Migration, Refugees and Resettlement  and its counterpart in the RA (Republic of Armenia) co-ordinate their efforts in resettling the refugee families currently living in Armenia, in the newly built homes in the NKR. The inhabitants of the village of Pareshen will be refugees from the frontier villages of Artsakh destroyed during the war. Most of these families found temporary shelter in Armenia, and are on the waiting list at the RA  Department of Migration and Refugees. As the homes become ready, the families are offered to move to their new village.

What are the living conditions like? The weather is generally mild in Hadrout (temperate climate). It is particularly good for planting fruit trees, grapes and wheat. The area is also good for cattle breeding. According to the agreement between AGBU London and the NKR government, villagers will be allocated farmland and receive grants to purchase cattle and seeds to exploit the rich environment.

The children will go to the Norashen School which is about 2km (1.2 miles)  from Pareshen. There are plans to install a gas boiler at the Norashen School for the time when the country's gas grid reaches the villages of the region, but in the meantime, the school using the portable stoves to heat the classrooms.

The Norashen clinic will provide the medical care to the families of Pareshen. The surgeon from the Hadrout Regional Hospital visits Norashen twice a week and depending on the seriousness of cases, patients are sometimes transferred to the Hardout Regional Hospital or the Stepanakert Hospital.

Mini buses and a regular daily bus service, except for Sundays, operates between the town of Hadrout and Stepanakert. Pareshen families however have to make their own way to Hadrout, a distance of 7km (4.5 miles) from Pareshen. There is a disco in Hadrout and some restaurants/cafes, but nothing serious.