RUSSIAN BASE ANGERS ARMENIANS.

The Russian military base at Gyumri isoffending the local population because Russian servicemen have electricitywhen the local population does not, Krasnaya zvezda said April 28. The base,which Russia will operate for 25 years under a recent agreement with Yerevan,both guards 50 kilometers of the Armenian border and helps support Moscow’soperations in Georgia’s Abkhazia. It is having a hard time keeping personnel:there is no housing for the wives of officers, and schools are open inArmenia only four to five months a year because of shortages in power andheat. As a result, officers there increasingly are without their families.

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