11 million US dollars. This is the sum of money that was needed to complete the construction works of the highway that has tremendous strategic importance. The total cost of the project is 25 million USD. Half of it is already raised and spent. The first 13 million was raised during several years, whereas now, nearly the same sum was raised thanks to one action, the success of which was mainly ensured by Armenians in the United States. Here are some figures for comparison. In 2002, during the telethon conducted in Los Angeles 5 million USD was raised and in 2000 – 3.5 million. The rising tendency is obvious, let alone the fact that the past year was not an easy one for American Armenians. U.S. Presidential and parliamentary elections had much influence on their pockets. Almost 4 million USD was transferred to John Kerry’s electoral fund by Armenians. A lot of money was spent also to support pro-Armenian candidates to the congress and senate. Nevertheless, the Armenian community of America found resources to support Karabakh.
The majority of donations were made from the eastern coast of the United States. New-York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey Southwest – California is on the second place. In Europe the French, British and Swedish Armenians were the most active. A lot of donations were made from Canada, Argentina and Australia. It is quite evident that donations from Armenian businessmen become more considerable year by year. More than 4 million AMD was raised in one day in Vanadzor, a city with high unemployment. Donations are made even by the construction workers, who realize that some part of the money donated will return to them soon. It is worth mentioning that the construction of the highway is important not only strategically, but also socially, because 2000 workplaces were created thanks to the project.
In the past years the lion’s share of the donations were provided by several multimillionaires, but now their share has decreased due to the rise of small and middle donations. In early 90s multimillionaire Kirk Kirkoryan waited till the end of the marathon and donated as much as it was already raised from the whole world. This time large donations were made by Louis-Simon Manoukyan and Gerard Gafeschyan from USA and Eduardo Ernekyan from Argentina. But the sum of money, donated by them is not so marked against the background of the eight-digit figure raised thanks to the input of the rest of participants. Thousands of Armenians, living in America, Europe, the Near East, Armenia and even Africa and Australia felt themselves obliged to take part in the national action, organized by the “Hayastan” fund, proving once again that the Motherland and the Diaspora are unified.
