UPDATE at the bottom of the post

I want to share my story with you guys, especially those of you who want to repatriate and are male.

About me:

I was 5 years young when we moved to another country. I grew up there and speak the language better than Armenian. I can’t write Armenian either. I worked in the IT industry and until recently had successfully founded a startup.

My Story:

At the beginning of last year, government officials came to my country to encourage diaspora Armenians and entrepreneurs to come to Armenia. Many nice things were said and that the government offers many benefit packages to IT companies.

A few months later, the President came and I was invited to the Armenian Embassy to participate in the question and answer session. I personally asked questions and was praised for wanting to bring software and hardware development / PCB production to Armenia. Again, the country was highly praised and that now, thanks to the new government, many things have changed for the better.

A month later, I was invited to participate in the Nerzuzh 4.0 startup competition. When I wanted to send two employees, I was told that one of the Armenian founders had to be present. I emphasized that I might have problems with military service…

Side note:

At the age of 16, I came to Armenia for a week to see my dying grandfather one last time. At that time, they took away my passport and forced me to register for military service.

… The Ministry of High Tech said "No problem, we’ll sort it out!"

However, when I arrived with one of my employees, I was immediately arrested. Legal proceedings were opened against me. After I got a lawyer, I was released, but am not allowed to leave the country.

Main story:

The court case was unnecessarily drawn out from September until now with over 7 sessions. My company went bankrupt because I wasn’t there and we lost big customers as a result. Not a single one of the government contacts I had wanted to help me. I ran around without papers for 7 months until I finally received an ID card. I traveled over 7000km in Armenia because I was registered near Dilijan at the age of 5. I was sent around the whole time because nobody wanted to give me papers because I could flee the country. The court case is in Ijevan, I live in a garage in Yerevan and can barely cover my costs and I’m starving.

Current situation:

Now with the new law, I asked a friend to lend me €19,000 to serve for a month and fly home. After I had the tests done, I was told that I was not fit for military service. Now I am being asked to pay €36,000. I am at the end of my rope. Today, at the age of 32, I had a stroke and have no money for a hospital visit. I can hardly speak and I can’t feel my left arm. My mother always spoke highly of this government. Today, she is waiting for me at home, seriously ill, and I can neither help her nor go back to her. I think I have reached the end of my strength. I ask you to think carefully about whether you want to return to this country if you don’t have €36,000 lying around. Don’t believe everything the government says, they are hypocrites and no better than the old corrupt ones. Nobody wants to take responsibility and nobody cares about a human life if they don’t benefit from it themselves or if it causes them inconvenience.

I pray that nobody ever experiences my situation. This country killed me even though I love it. If anyone reads this, thank you. I don’t want pity, I just want to share my story and thoughts and hope you had a better day 🙂

UPDATE:

Ok guys, here is an update about yesterday. I was at the Hospital and it was NOT a stroke they told me, but I could get one because of extreme high blood pressure, maybe because of stress. So I got some medicaments for that now. The other problems came from malnutrition, I must admit I didn’t eat much since two months and lost 17kg. They gave me an infusion, now I feel way better. Just need to take some medicine to calm down because of the blood pressure, till this situation gets a bit better.

I read the comments and was amazed but also sad that some people don’t believe me. You know, I was a bit naive and blindly believed everything that government officials told me, but time pressure was also a reason. They gave me a week to organize everything on our side. We were invited and the flights were booked by the ministry within two days, we had about a week and had to prepare for presentations, pitches and other things. I could hardly think clearly and thought that if the officials said that, everything would be fine. But not at all.

How could the company go bankrupt? If the top person who shakes hands, manages the team and signs contracts or visits customers is stuck 3000km away and nobody knows when they will be back, investors and team members tend to doubt the success of the whole thing. You lose investors, team members give up. Customers can leave, which in turn scares off investors. I personally invested around 180,000 euros in the company at the time, partly through savings, mostly through loans, not to mention all the work.

Regarding my inability to do military service:

It was because of my high blood pressure, but mostly because I have a gallstone that is too big. I asked for them to at least grant me limited military service ability, but they laughed at me and said they had never experienced anything like it

This is the "human being" who drafted this law or something like that:

https://preview.redd.it/vmx7hxf3poad1.jpg?width=2580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4a30b341aff1eb81d6bede48a9e00d98afb0a19d

Also I talked to Paron Melkonyan at the national assembly a few times, he said he will try to help. But till now he couldn’t offer anything helpful, I don’t blame him. Now my last hope is to talk again to Paron Sinanyan from the Migration Ministry. But I have to get the papers from Dilijan Zinkom (Military) first. They say I have to submit a notarized application translated into Armenian. Anyway I don’t have any hope this will help either.

PS: here is the GoFundMe campaign, which was not my Idea to begin with, this was a recommendation by some of you, to try out:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/reached-rock-bottom-need-some-help?utm_source=copy_link&utm_medium=customer&utm_campaign=man_sharesheet_dash&attribution_id=sl:72100b48-687f-4a77-89ef-16553f4afe88

Also if anyone wants more information about me, my current blood pressure as a photo, or my startup or wants to see a photo of my face, please send me a pm.