Residents Stage Sit-In Near Government Building Demanding Their Apartments

Residents of Tigran Mets and Hanrapetutyan streets in central Yerevan, whose homes were expropriated 10 years ago, staged a protest action Wednesday in front of the RA government building, demanding a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan. When their demand was rejected by authorities, the protesters proceeded to block central Tigran Mets Avenue. 

Law enforcement officers, however, removed the citizens from the carriageway, while RA Minister of Urban Development Narek Sargsyan refused to talk to the protesters in front of cameras and invited them to come to him in the evening. 

The residents, instead, decided to stage a sit-in in front of the government building until they were given a clear answer. Mayis Yepremyan, protester who owns property on 1 Tigran Mets Str., told Epress.am that more than 200 families have suffered from the activities of Glendale Hills Company: the developer has not yet provided the residents with new apartments, although the deadlines have already passed. 

“We signed an agreement in 2009. In return for our apartment buildings being demolished, we were to receive apartments in the newly built houses within 36 months. However, it’s already been six years. We [rent houses]; and we can hardly get the rent money [from the company]. We haven’t received anything for the last two months. Since construction had been terminated on the site of our previous buildings, they promised to give us apartments in the houses built near the Wine Factory. They built ten stories, and then stopped. We have no idea when they’ll give us [apartments]. I’ve already suffered two infarctions during this time,” Yepremyan said. 

One of the protesters, in turn, said there are people who have died or migrated over this period: “We want our apartments now; we don’t need them posthumously.”

Protester Armen Simonyan told Epress.am that when signing the agreement, he had paid USD 18 thousand to receive a 2-room apartment instead of his 1-room one. However, Simonyan stated, he has not received neither an apartment nor his money back to date.