Incentives to Live and Procreate in Arstakh

Over the weekend I was up in the Pasadena area visiting with family and one of my cousin's mentioned the 700 couples that got married in Artsakh during a mass wedding. As if the participation of 1400 people in in a mass wedding wasn't shocking enough, she went on to add that in addition they were given monetary incentive to procreate to increase the population of Artsakh.

Here is a link to the article:


So how does this work? Here's the breakdown
First child = $2000
Second child =$3000
Third child = $5000
Fifth Child = $20,000
Sixth Child = $50,000
Seventh Child = $100,000
*I wonder why there's no figure for the fourth child.

I also wonder how many of these couples were lured to Artsakh by the governments offerings of livestock and land to new residents. (Is that offer still around?) Both of these incentive programs are great marketing tools and are making moving and living in Artsakh more and more appealing. Why wouldn't an Armenian family from Iraq who has lost everything and needs to start from scratch anyway not do so in Artsakh and benefit from these programs? I think this is a great approach to increasing our numbers. I think Armenians all over the world need to be having multiple children to increase our total number not just our numbers in Artsakh and I think Armenia needs to follow suit and learn from Artsakh's example by offering incentives for citizens to stay and repats to come. What is the point of liberating Artsakh if no one is going to live there? What is the point of expecting Turkey to hand back parts of Western Armenia if no one is going to live there.

I think as diasporans it is important for us to ask ourselves "what's going to get me to move there?" and as repats to ask yourselves "what's going to get me to stay here?"

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this matter.