EN ROUTE ARTSAKH

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Support Vardenis-Mardakert Highway — strategically important road connecting Artsakh with Armenia's northern regions.

Building an alternate route between Armenia and Karabakh is the designated campaign theme of the upcoming Armenia Fund’s 16th International Thanksgiving Day Telethon. The goal of this massive public works effort is to turn the roads that currently link a string of strategically important towns in northern Armenia and northern Karabakh into a modern highway system. The new route is projected to promote trade, cooperation, and economic development among vulnerable border communities that are vital to national security.

The security, stability, sustainability connection

Since its completion back in 1999, Goris-Stepanakert Highway has proven to be the kingpin of the Fund’s sustainable economic development and security strategy. Prior to its construction, it would take days to travel from Mardakert in Karabakh to Yerevan in Armenia. After completion of the Goris-Stepanakert Highway as well as the North-South Highway, within Karabakh alone, it now takes just nine hours. With the addition of the Vardenis-Mardakert Highway, there will be a shortcut through the north, which will take just a few hours to cross. Then trucks can reach markets faster, so that businesses can function. Equally important, supplies can reach local government centers promptly. In the map shown on the opposite page, the Goris-Stepanakert route connects southeastern Armenia with south-central Karabakh, ending in its capital city. That excludes access for both northern Armenia’s border communities and those border towns in Karabakh, which, 22 years ago, were delineated as part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Today, these villages are neighbors with a hostile Azerbaijan, creating a very different security dynamic. An alternative route connecting the two Armenian republics can make all the difference. The map also indicates the route of the Vardenis-Mardakert Highway that will link 30 communities including the three towns: Vardenis in Armenia, Karvachar and Mardakert in Karabakh.

A projects-within-a-project approach

The road from Vardenis in Armenia to Mardakert in Karabakh, totals 117 kilometers (72 miles), estimated cost $30M. Over 150,000 residents and 30 communities stand to benefit from the new highway. It covers such varied terrain that there are multiple construction, engineering, and public safety challenges involved. There is a significant stretch of unpaved, dirt-covered road that changes dramatically in width at different intervals and involves as many as 16 bridges and overpasses, 339 sharp turns, 17 of which are serpentine configurations. Other sections have been partially blocked due to landslides or river swells, adding to the hazardous conditions. Finally, new road signage, protective barriers and other modern standards of road safety must be installed to meet current safety standards and government regulations. The constructor will provide 5-year warranty for the road.

Armenia Fund’s 16th International Telethon to put northern regions in the spotlight.

We believe that our past support of major highway projects has produced tangible, lasting benefits. We have led the way through this type of ambitious undertaking twice before, under more trying circumstances. Building roads is gritty and heavy work and doesn’t make for pretty photos, yet the promise for transformative change is golden. Support Vardenis-Mardakert Highway today!