More than two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, parts of Armenia appear to remain stuck in time, while others have surged ahead.
There are clear signs of progress: the country’s national poverty rate has almost halved since the 1990s and the capital Yerevan bustles with lively sidewalk cafes. But brutalist Soviet buildings and sculptures are also scattered throughout the capital city and the landlocked country’s rural provinces. It’s there, also, that a lack of development is most evident, says Timothy Straight, the honorary consul of Norway and Finland and the founder of the Homeland Development Initiative Foundation, HDIF.
Straight, a 60-year-old American and native of Ohio, launched HDIF, the only fair trade organization in the former Soviet Union, five years ago. Since then, Straight and his small team have worked with 200 Armenian women to produce and sell handmade toys, baby shoes, kitchenware and other goods that will soon be exported to a broad international market, including the United States.