This morning, my driver and I, with our big dump truck, went to Stepanagert to pick-up new tires and a load of marble/granite gravel for my floors.
We arrived in Stepanagert at about 10:30, after a slow drive via Aghdam.
First person we encounter was a traffic cop, who was looking for a bribe. I got out of the truck with my driver and walked up to him handing him the trucks documents and asked him what seems to be the problem? He just looked at me with a blank look, as if I was invisible. I then asked him if he knows me? Same blank look. I asked him if he was new? He said yes. I said in a kind of rude tone �you won�t last long in this job�. He asked me where I was from and I said Martuni, but added that his friend standing on the other side of the road could tell him better (pointing to the other cop that was with him). He didn�t know what to say and handed me back the documents without even looking at them. I told him that he better tell his buddies that this is my truck and they need not stop it in the future. As I walked back to the truck, I could hear him quietly asking my driver who I am. My driver told him that it was better if he didn�t ask that question and got back in the truck. We drove on and when we were out of earshot, we both started to laugh.
We picked up the tires and took them to a service depot, where we had them mounted. This took a very long time, as it�s all done by hand. The service people also took a look at the clutch and some other areas needing attention. They finished around 3:30 p.m.
We headed to the gravel pit, which is underneath Sushi and on the way we were stopped again by a couple of cops. This time I knew them and shook their hand, gave them the documents, introduced my driver (who they knew from shaking him down for bribes in the past) and without looking at the documents again, gave them back and sent us on our way.
We made it to the gravel pit at 4 p.m. where we found the workers in their lunchroom playing backgammon. I asked them if they had time to fill out truck with gravel and they told me yes and took the money for the gravel and excavator service (total 20,500 dram). The excavator operator got in his excavator to move it and discovered that he could not lift the stabilization feet. No less than a half-dozen people tried different things, finally giving up at 5 p.m. when he ran out of fuel. They sent someone off to get a smaller excavator to load our truck.
After a half-hour wait, the excavator showed up and loaded our truck to maximum capacity. We headed back towards Martuni at a turtles pace, being that we loaded 30 tons of gravel on a truck rated for 16 tons (he can handle this load if you don�t drive it fast).
We passed the cop who stopped us this morning. He still had the same blank look on his face.
As we were nearing Askeran, a police car coming in the opposite direction gave us a signal to stop. We did and I told my driver to not get out and let them come to the cab, which is how the law reads they must do. We waited a bit and when the cop neared the cap, he noticed me and smiled, as I signaled him to come over. He climbed up and shook my hand to say hello. I handed him the documents, but he said that it would not be necessary. I introduced him to my new driver and he told us to have a nice day and sent us on our way.
I guess it�s going to take the cops a bit to get use to our truck, but once they do, it will be exempt from being stopped for a bribe.
After a long drive, we made it to Aghdam at about 6:30. As we were making our way through, I told my driver how strange it feels to be in a place that use to have so many people living in it and is now nothing more than ghost-town today.
He began to tell how when he was a kid, he use to come with his father to Aghdam and remembers it being a place where you could purchase anything. He said he remembers that you could purchase a pistol with bullets for 50 rubles. He said that the code name for it was �a hen with chicks�. He said it was a place one could easily get robbed also. His uncle once came with a back pocket full of money and when he reached in it to pay for something, all he found was a hole in the bottom.
We stopped to give the truck a rest at a �restaurant� located next to a stream. The restaurant is run by this character named Ernist (almost a Boss Hog type from the old t.v. show �The Dukes of Hazard� but unshaved or bathed. The woman that works at the restaurant, who I think is Ernist�s wife was cleaning cabbage. I went to look in their yard and asked them where their garden was and how much the cabbage costs. She said they don�t have a garden and the cabbage was from Yerevan and costs 50 dram a kilo. She had three of four sacks full of cabbage and I knew right away that the Army bases in Martuni must have got their shipment of cabbage today. I�ve seen this kind of thing at that same spot happen a couple years ago, where I personally watched as Ernist and the driver of an army supply truck off loaded in to the back of Ernist�s car potatoes. I guess the crackdown on this kind of stuff has not yet come into effect with Ernist. As we drove off, I pointed out my observations to my driver and he said yes, Ernist is quite a sneaky person that you can�t trust.
Well we made it to Martuni at 10 p.m. and as we tried to dump the gravel in front of my house, but the truck didn�t seem to have the power to lift the bed in the air. I guess the rating of 16 tons is not for how much to you can transport, but is for how much power the hydraulic piston has to lift. Well they are going to shovel out part of the gravel in the morning and then dump the rest when the load is a little lighter.
We arrived in Stepanagert at about 10:30, after a slow drive via Aghdam.
First person we encounter was a traffic cop, who was looking for a bribe. I got out of the truck with my driver and walked up to him handing him the trucks documents and asked him what seems to be the problem? He just looked at me with a blank look, as if I was invisible. I then asked him if he knows me? Same blank look. I asked him if he was new? He said yes. I said in a kind of rude tone �you won�t last long in this job�. He asked me where I was from and I said Martuni, but added that his friend standing on the other side of the road could tell him better (pointing to the other cop that was with him). He didn�t know what to say and handed me back the documents without even looking at them. I told him that he better tell his buddies that this is my truck and they need not stop it in the future. As I walked back to the truck, I could hear him quietly asking my driver who I am. My driver told him that it was better if he didn�t ask that question and got back in the truck. We drove on and when we were out of earshot, we both started to laugh.
We picked up the tires and took them to a service depot, where we had them mounted. This took a very long time, as it�s all done by hand. The service people also took a look at the clutch and some other areas needing attention. They finished around 3:30 p.m.
We headed to the gravel pit, which is underneath Sushi and on the way we were stopped again by a couple of cops. This time I knew them and shook their hand, gave them the documents, introduced my driver (who they knew from shaking him down for bribes in the past) and without looking at the documents again, gave them back and sent us on our way.
We made it to the gravel pit at 4 p.m. where we found the workers in their lunchroom playing backgammon. I asked them if they had time to fill out truck with gravel and they told me yes and took the money for the gravel and excavator service (total 20,500 dram). The excavator operator got in his excavator to move it and discovered that he could not lift the stabilization feet. No less than a half-dozen people tried different things, finally giving up at 5 p.m. when he ran out of fuel. They sent someone off to get a smaller excavator to load our truck.
After a half-hour wait, the excavator showed up and loaded our truck to maximum capacity. We headed back towards Martuni at a turtles pace, being that we loaded 30 tons of gravel on a truck rated for 16 tons (he can handle this load if you don�t drive it fast).
We passed the cop who stopped us this morning. He still had the same blank look on his face.
As we were nearing Askeran, a police car coming in the opposite direction gave us a signal to stop. We did and I told my driver to not get out and let them come to the cab, which is how the law reads they must do. We waited a bit and when the cop neared the cap, he noticed me and smiled, as I signaled him to come over. He climbed up and shook my hand to say hello. I handed him the documents, but he said that it would not be necessary. I introduced him to my new driver and he told us to have a nice day and sent us on our way.
I guess it�s going to take the cops a bit to get use to our truck, but once they do, it will be exempt from being stopped for a bribe.
After a long drive, we made it to Aghdam at about 6:30. As we were making our way through, I told my driver how strange it feels to be in a place that use to have so many people living in it and is now nothing more than ghost-town today.
He began to tell how when he was a kid, he use to come with his father to Aghdam and remembers it being a place where you could purchase anything. He said he remembers that you could purchase a pistol with bullets for 50 rubles. He said that the code name for it was �a hen with chicks�. He said it was a place one could easily get robbed also. His uncle once came with a back pocket full of money and when he reached in it to pay for something, all he found was a hole in the bottom.
We stopped to give the truck a rest at a �restaurant� located next to a stream. The restaurant is run by this character named Ernist (almost a Boss Hog type from the old t.v. show �The Dukes of Hazard� but unshaved or bathed. The woman that works at the restaurant, who I think is Ernist�s wife was cleaning cabbage. I went to look in their yard and asked them where their garden was and how much the cabbage costs. She said they don�t have a garden and the cabbage was from Yerevan and costs 50 dram a kilo. She had three of four sacks full of cabbage and I knew right away that the Army bases in Martuni must have got their shipment of cabbage today. I�ve seen this kind of thing at that same spot happen a couple years ago, where I personally watched as Ernist and the driver of an army supply truck off loaded in to the back of Ernist�s car potatoes. I guess the crackdown on this kind of stuff has not yet come into effect with Ernist. As we drove off, I pointed out my observations to my driver and he said yes, Ernist is quite a sneaky person that you can�t trust.
Well we made it to Martuni at 10 p.m. and as we tried to dump the gravel in front of my house, but the truck didn�t seem to have the power to lift the bed in the air. I guess the rating of 16 tons is not for how much to you can transport, but is for how much power the hydraulic piston has to lift. Well they are going to shovel out part of the gravel in the morning and then dump the rest when the load is a little lighter.
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