[b]Yerevan, Armenia[/b]

	Elections were logistically-heavy operations. For months, electoral committees studied census data to determine the intricate distribution of ballots and voting stations amongst Armenian communities. From the biggest cities to the smallest mountain towns, all the way out to flying seaplanes to collect absentee ballots from merchant ships, voting officials were beginning their work. A strong democracy was called for in the original roots of the Armenian nation, the idea being that the Armenian state served the Armenian people instead of the goals of a single man. Everyone, from company men in Yerevan to farmers working vineyards in the valleys near Stepanakert, was afforded the opportunity to vote. And June was when all of this came together to determine the next Armenian president. In Yerevan, each neighborhood maintained a voting office in some sort of civic center: a community center, library, school, or something like that. These in turn were guarded by police, where signs of illegitimate voting were watched for.  People began lining up in the morning underneath the watchful eyes of armed police officers, and voted until the polls closed at dusk.

	Votes were collected from [i]hamaynkner[/i], or local towns and communities, in regional centers where they were counted. For local elections, this was usually enough to determine low-level politicians. Larger operations, such as for province-sized [i]marz[/i] elections, used these voting centers’ data and counted up from them: this simple scaled up to the national level in the case of the June presidential election. Many of the Armenian revolutionary councilmen had been educated in Europe during Ottoman rule, and thus returned to their country seeking to establish similar institutions for their own democracy. Armenian executive elections were set up with a two-round system drawn from European political systems. The election of 1960 had four major candidates: Hasmik Assanian, who was still projected to be leading with a majority; the current conservative incumbent of Joseph Vadratian, and two others from the revolutionary and socialist parties who were trailing behind both. Assanian’s surge in popularity over the course of the election was projected to have him take the presidency that week: however, the system enabled a second election between him and another candidate if neither of them managed to break fifty percent of the vote.

	At the campaign headquarters, however, the staff didn’t seem so humble. Champagne, specially delivered from France, was cooling in the cellar while laborers carried unimportant furniture and other objects to the curb. Radio Yerevan announced the closings of polling stations in various [i]marz[/i]s as the sun dipped below the skyline of the city, bathing its pink buildings in an orange glow. Assanian waited in his office with his Vice President to-be. While Assanian was in his mid-forties with lighter skin and thinning black hair, the Vice President was thirty-two, the youngest a candidate could be, with longish curly brown hair and a much darker complexion and looked almost Turkish. His name was Hovik Idratian, and he came from Van. Idratian was picked specifically due to his experience in the region, being descended from a long line of well-respected Western Armenian who were popular for their incessant efforts to lobby for a region that was mostly ignored by the Easterners. A land of barren desert and sand had hardened the young man, despite his boyish face. He presented himself fairly lightly, however, and wore a suit of light grey in contrast to Assanian’s stern black.

	As Idratian’s job was to manage the cabinet of Assanian’s administration, he was in the back by a desk coordinating their arrival to the office. All eleven of them were returning from their private residences in Yerevan in their cars, elated at the news of the election. Just the other day, the final selection had been made on the most difficult position to fill: Minister of Development. The National Reconstruction Agency was that ministry’s major project, and was responsible for bringing the parts of Armenia that were still developmentally stunted up to par with what was to be expected from a regional power: something that Armenia saw itself as an achievable goal within the next decade or so. Assanian and Idratian picked another Westerner for this position, due to his philanthropy work repairing villages that were destroyed by Ottoman occupiers during the revolution. He, too, was highly respected by many of the lower-class Armenians, even if he did sometimes say things that bordered on too communist for Assanian’s own liking. Despite this, he knew how to get money for these projects and he knew how to use it wisely.

	It seemed, however, that the job of the presidency started before the election was even over. Already, an investigation in Gyumri was starting to turn up evidence of a volatile situation in its ghettoes. Communists were, in the opinion of his intelligence committee, starting to worsen the already volatile situation in Europe. Persia wanted to review terms of a new oil pipeline before the contract could be moved further. His laundry list of things to take care of grew every day, some of it appearing in the newspapers recently and some of it simply being inherited from an apathetic incumbent. Vadratian had spent the last few months sitting in office, most likely with his boxes already packed, blaming anyone and anything except himself for why the polls showed him being, at most, around twenty percent. There were rumors of him trying to delay the election by any means necessary, but the Constitution declared it legal to forcibly step a sitting president down if they tried to stay in power without a good reason. He had already tried to call fraud on multiple primary poll results over the election season, and each investigation yielded nothing.

	In Armenia, the legislative system usually maintained enough checks and balances on the executive branch, thanks to the political agreements amongst the Armenian Separatist Federation Councilmen after the Revolution. The Armenian Parliament had the power necessary to arrest, in the worst case, an executive politician who was unwilling to leave once his term was over. In addition, several leaders of the ASF militias still survived and constituted the Council even in their old age. They had no organized power but, if they disapproved of someone and made it known, any and all of their social or political capital would vanish as others took advantage of this to attack them. They were already annoyed with Vadratian for his actions around the Russians, hinting that treating the Russians like he did was akin to the Ottoman occupation, so they were watching the election closely. One wrong move from Vadratian, and he could be labeled a traitor to the Armenian state by people who were unanimously respected in society. It seemed like President Vadratian knew that, too, and had slinked away from the spotlight in the last week or so of the election.

	The votes were coming in as the sun set and night took over the city. The densest and most urban [i]hamaynkner[/i], such as Yerevan or other cities, would report their votes to their respective [i]marzer[/i] first while the rural countryside naturally took longer. Therefore, more urban [i]marzer[/i] reported in first: Yerevan traditionally was the start of the results, and an overwhelming victory for Assanian came through the telephone lines to a staffer. Assanian led at sixty-six percent of Yerevan’s vote, followed by Vadratian at fifteen. A resounding cheer came through the floor from below, as it was a wide belief that Yerevan charted the course of the rest of the country. For every major presidential election, Yerevan had correctly predicted the winner. While this didn’t stack up for Parliament’s elections all the time, it was still a strong enough tradition to celebrate heavily when Yerevan brought in a political win. Somewhere, a bottle of champagne’s muffled pop sounded through the thin walls of the West Yerevan building. Idratian silently smirked and pounded his fist on his chest, before reaching for his own bottle of dark liquor.

	The rest of the night, until the morning hours when the mountainous Artsakh could finally get all of its votes transported and counted, was spent listening to the voting reports come through the official telephone lines. The scores from these provinces were averaged out as the sun began to rise, leading to the final result that would be broadcast for the country to hear: Hasmik Assanian had won the Armenian presidency with a vote of sixty-five percent of the Armenian populace. Joseph Vadratian took his place with twenty percent, mostly brought in from the southern areas with little to no Russian presence, while the fringe candidates managed fifteen between them. A roar came from the downstairs offices as the campaign clinched its victory. Someone lit fireworks off the roof and the street exploded in red, blue, and orange lights one after the other. Idratian came over to the armchair where Assanian watched the Hrazdan River from his window and handed him the bottle. Out a whiskey glass emblazoned with the logo of his old regiment, the next President of the Republic of Armenia sipped some of Idratian’s liquor. It tasted like aged cognac.

	“Well sir, it looks like everyone is all here,” proclaimed Idratian as he peeked outside of the wooden door to the hallway. “Do you want to meet your new cabinet?” he asked.

	“I wouldn’t say that it’s my new cabinet, but it’s official now,” answered back Assanian as he threw a suitcoat over his sturdy frame.

	The pair strode through the hallway, its cream-colored walls lit by lightbulbs in elaborate sconces. The conference room was located at the end, next to the staircase of the building, guarded by an oak double door. The Vice President went forth to open the door for his new boss and waved him through. Inside, Assanian’s cabinet awaited: men from their early thirties to their sixties, dressed in anything from navy blue to dark grey suits but all with a purple tie and a flag pin upon their lapels, stood in a semicircle with glasses raised for the new leader of their country. A smile touched the stern lips of a stoic man, before Idratian poured him his own glass of traditional brandy: made from white grapes and spring water from a vineyard just outside of Yerevan. Without further word, they toasted, slamming their drinks down onto the conference table before downing them: “To the new President!”

	More fireworks popped in the sky outside, as supporters of the new president moved to Independence Square to celebrate. Bullhorns and speakers announced the victory to the people of Armenia, from the desert of Erzurum to the black forests of the Artsakh. This night was for celebrating, but after a short break the next week was when business truly started. Things were moving quickly in the region: there really was no rest for anyone in this world.

[b]Aygestan, Armenia[/b]

	Logging was a deceptively simple operation: if enough people cut deep enough into a tree with their axes, it would fall to the ground and could be picked up and moved to carpenters to be made into an innumerable amount of useful objects. The Artsakh was known as a heavily forested region nestled in the rocky mountains of Eastern Armenia, bordering Azerbaijan and Persia. Much of Armenia’s wood came from here, and the craftsmanship of Artsakh woodworkers was known throughout the region. But before ornate furniture could be exported from the region, the raw wood had to come from the mountain valleys. As the morning fog cleared, a crew of men in a military-surplus halftrack painted bright blue drove through a winding dirt road. A rainstorm from the direction of Sevan had just passed through and left thick mud in its wake, but the halftrack motored through with efficiency before taking a turn towards the job site. It wound down the hill, taking care to go slowly by the sharp turns that threatened to flip the clumsy vehicle. Eventually, it came to a series of tents and firepits that marked the logging camp.

	A crew of a dozen men jumped out of the back and into the mud, splashing it onto their coveralls and cotton pants. They held axes and hatchets in their hands and greeted their friends as a late breakfast was served. Most people around there ate a simple, small breakfast: in this case, coffee was made and poured for the new crew and loaves of bread were prepared with jars of sweet jam. Breakfast and conversation filled the forest as the fog and mist left, revealing a lush undergrowth of dark green foliage sneaking through the trees. With the size of this camp, it took about a day to fell around twenty trees, so they wasted no time getting to work. The loggers moved from their camp with their equipment bundled on the back of mules and other pack animals to help navigate the rough mountain slopes in their way, trekking through their footpaths past the stumps of trees that had been cut down before. Careful to select ones that they could easily bring back, the loggers selected their first hauls of the day and immediately set up their things.

	Gor Kandarian worked a handsaw with his partner on one of the bigger trees on the mountainside. A set of steel cables had been wrapped around the tree and attached to a pulley somewhere else so that, once the tree had been cut, they could lower it down slowly. This was a necessity in mountain logging, catching the timbers before they swung down violently onto people. Gor and his partner worked the backbreaking labor of sawing the handsaw back and worth, sweating as the summer heat began to replace the cool morning fog. It was ten in the morning by the time they had gotten almost there: Gor checked his cheap mechanical wristwatch and nodded, approving of the timeliness of this particular job. The two went back to business before, several minutes later, a crackling and splitting sound was heard from a few meters away. Another tree had been felled, caught by its wires, and gently lowered to the ground to be cleared of branches and jutting sticks before rolled back to a collection point. Gor continued to saw, before he saw his tree begin to topple over once it was almost severed.

	The gigantic tree, lush with a healthy dark brown bark, began to fall as its weight dragged it to the ground. The slack on its steel cables tightened, stretching them out. Gor stepped back, down from his portable ladder, but never heard the metallic popping sound as the left cable snapped out of an old, rusty clip on the pulley that someone had forgotten to replace. The cable, now unconstrained by its pulley, suddenly let loose: the tree began falling rapidly, swinging towards Gor’s direction. Unable to even register what was happening before tragedy struck, Gor was slammed in the torso by the massive log and sent flying down the mountain slope like a ragdoll. The tree crashed into another with a thunderous sound, while Gor himself found an end to his journey as he slammed into the trunk of another tree. Blood oozed from his head and nose where, underneath, he had cracked his skull against the tree. He went limp, his vision quickly phased to darkness, and he was dead as quickly as he became injured. 

	Naturally, the crew of logging workers stopped their work immediately and rushed over to help, but by then it was too late. The body of Gor was picked up by two of his comrades and dragged back to the camp, a process that took much longer than getting out to the job site. A runner came to camp and pounded on the fabric door of the supervisor’s tent, screaming for him to come out. The man was ordered to take the supervisor’s automobile and drive to the clinic in Aygestan, the local village, and find the doctor. This, too, proved difficult as the vehicle became stuck in the mud on the dirt road back to the village. Gor was laid out in the center of camp, but the members of the camp knew that it was already too late. He was dead long before he had gotten back to camp. It was only a matter of time before the doctor came by to declare the same thing. An hour later, he did.

	Elsewhere in the village, Mary Kandarian watered her bed of carrots in the yard behind her family home. Nestled atop a hill that sloped down into the woods, the Kandarian home was like most Artsakh rural homestays, was built of stone with decorative wooden columns and a porch that wrapped around the base of the structure. In the back was the greenhouse, a small barn, and several plots of vegetables that Mary enjoyed cultivating for their meals. Within the house, Gor and Mary lived with both of their parents and four children, forming a large family unit typical of rural society there. Their days were generally the same, with Gor coming and going at regular hours unless he knew, and always ahead of time, if he was spending time in the camp as a permanent party. The kids would go to school and come back every day, and the grandparents would stay and read and knit and watch over the house with Mary. For Gor to come home late was highly unusual, since he didn’t do things like go out drinking with his coworkers after work.

	Around nine at night, a knock came to Mary’s door. She was reading in the living room while waiting for Gor, the kids had been sent to bed and the parents were asleep already. She got up and went to the red-painted entrance where she thought that Gor should have already used his key. Opening the door, she saw two men were not her husband: the town doctor and the camp supervisor, palms folded respectfully and somber looks upon their faces. The supervisor, and older man with a greying beard and long hair that touched the collar of his grey cotton shirt, bowed his head as he took a step forward. “Mrs. Kandarian,” he began softly, “Gor was killed today.”

	Mary’s heart froze, like she was having a heart attack. She stood in the doorway for a few seconds while the blood rushed to her head, reddening her face and leaving the tips of her fingers and toes numb. Her heart, it seemed, could be felt pounding through her chest and her head. “What do you mean?” she asked, trying to keep her wavering voice steady under the pressure.

	“I mean… There was an accident. I’m so sorry.” This was all the supervisor could manage in front of Mary. It was obvious he was upset by this as well.

	Mary’s mouth twitched and formed into a grotesque frown, tears flowing from her eyes despite her attempts to stop them. Her breathing became almost like hiccups as she tried to stop the sobbing. The supervisor put his hand on her shoulder, and she jerked away. The doctor now, came up to comfort her. “Gor will be returned to you for the funeral, and the priest will be coming by tomorrow,” he soothed, knowing that this was the only thing he could say. “If there is anything else you need, just remember that the village is with you.”

	“But why?” asked Mary, looking back up at the doctor. “Why Gor? What am I going to do?”

	The supervisor hesitated for a second before answering: “These things happen, it could have happened to anyone at any time. Even me… But the storm will pass eventually for you and your family.”

	Mary shook her head and stepped back into her house, grabbing the door handle: “Return my husband’s body to us tomorrow,” she asked. “But for now, leave me be.”

	The supervisor nodded quietly, and Mary slammed the door on them. Unable to control it anymore, she went to her sofa and dove into it. Her husband of ten years, dead in a random accident. Someone who she had raised her family with and built her life around, gone in an instant. It was frustrating, it was maddening, and it was tragic. How could it have happened to her? Even worse, now they had four children and three grandparents to support, none of whom worked, and Gor was the only steady source of money that they had. She was left in a dark place with nowhere to go, and she cried through the night long after the supervisor’s car pulled away from the road and headed off to the doctor’s office. The night was long for Mary, proved by her red eyes and running makeup as the sun rose and shone through her window. Before breakfast, she cleaned herself up to maintain the air of dignity as her family came down to eat. As they gathered around their upset mother, they noticed that something was wrong, and Mary stood in front of the crowd of increasingly-frightened family members to say it bluntly: “Your father… Well, your father is dead.”