Armenian authorities say there is little they can do to help the truck drivers who have spent weeks in what is reported to be a 150-kilometer queue of vehicles waiting to cross the border.
Such situations at the Upper Lars checkpoint are typical of winter months, but also happen during the rest of the year when landslide block traffic along a mountain serpentine in Georgia.
Local authorities are trying to clear the road from snow, but heavy snowfalls still make the Gudauri section of the road impassable for trucks.
“It is very narrow, ours are long trucks, they don’t fit into those turns… Snowplows have been trying to clean the road, but the wind blows more snow there,” said Tigran Gabrielian, one of the Armenian drivers stuck at Upper Lars.
Many truck drivers are concerned that perishables that they are transporting will soon go bad.
“The thing is that a lot of diesel fuel is spent every day to maintain the necessary temperature inside the refrigerator. We hope that at least some of the cargo will be preserved,” Gabrielian said.
“I am transporting tomatoes and have to keep the temperature inside the refrigerator at +6 degrees Celsius, but still it is very likely that some of them will go bad,” he added.
Another Armenian truck driver Azat Davtian said that after spending about 20 days in the queue he and his fellows were also worried about the prospect of losing their cargoes and freezing if they ran out of fuel.
“We have three trucks loaded with apples. We have been stranded here for 19 days. Our diesel fuel will end soon. I don’t know what we are going to do then. But something will have to be done,” Davtian said.
Armenia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said that as many as 375 vehicles had lined up on the Russian side of the Russian-Georgian border due to bad weather conditions. The Armenian ministry said it had no data on the number of vehicles stuck in traffic at the Georgian side of the border.
Arion Logistics cargo company owner Gurgen Vanetsian said that 25 of their trucks have for more than three weeks been stuck in traffic on both sides of the border. He said that drivers constantly ask for money so that they can buy something to eat in nearby villages where food now costs twice as much as its normal price. He said that already now they are counting their costs.
Meanwhile, truck drivers in the long queue have set up an online group that now has about 4,000 users to share information on the situation. All appear to have the same problems: requests from banks to repay overdue loans, problems with food and fuel and concerns about perishables in their trucks.
Armenian authorities say that representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Revenue Committee are dealing with the situation, but they acknowledge that little can be done to change the weather conditions.
Aram Tananian, a customs attache at the Armenian embassy in Russia, said that he was trying to help the drivers as much as it was possible to do in a long queue at a border checkpoint outside Armenian jurisdiction.
“Of course, we drive along that 150-kilometer queue and stop and approach people there. But we can’t really do much to solve everyday problems that these people have,” the official said.
Tananian also denied claims by some companies about discrimination against Armenian drivers at the border.