We are now back in Gyumri. These houses are pretty average. Conventional wisdom says
that everyone in Armenia has electricity, and almost everyone, certainly everyone living
in a city, has gas for heating. But Gyumri is still recovering from a devastating
earthquake in 1988 which left 20,000 dead and thousands homeless. The collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1992, and subsequent wars and blockades with neighboring countries
have left many people unemployed and desperate and sometimes burning their parquet
flooring to keep from freezing to death.