Cheated Yerevan Homeowners Protest Outside President’s Office; Mayor Too Busy to See Them

Four former homeowners of apartments on Yerevan’s Lalayan, Buzand and Teryan streets held yet another protest action outside the Armenian president’s office today. Recall, during Robert Kocharyan’s presidency, a decision was made to build Northern Avenue in the center of Yerevan, resulting in the forced expropriation of hundreds of people’s homes and lands, mostly without paying compensation or providing negligible amounts. The homeowners agreed to leave their homes on the condition that they would be given apartments in new buildings to be constructed in the same area. For this they signed an agreement with a developer, but not only did they not receive their new apartments, but also their units were resold to other parties (sometimes not once, but twice).

Aida Asatryan, an official from the presidential administration, told the disgruntled protesters that they should be given financial compensation and had to take up the issue with he Yerevan mayor.

“The mayor’s office, however, says the status of the city has changed and our claims are no longer viable,” homeowner Artur Melik-Shahnazaryan said in conversation with Epress.am.

Officials from the mayor’s office, for their part, have advised the protesters to take their issue to court. “Filing a case is too expensive and a European Court case even more so. Most of the homeowners are elderly people; one of us lives with his son-in-law, others with daughters or other relatives. Why should we have to? I used to have an apartment… And what an apartment it was! Why should I have to live at others’ places?” protester Knarik Arustamyan complained.

“They terrorized the people to force them out of their homes. ‘We’ll arrest your son… Your son will disappear,’ they’d say. I had a lawyer who advised me to just agree to the terms and silently sign the contract because the people on the other side were too powerful – Rober Kocharyan, [then-justice minister] Davit Harutyunyan, [then-mayor] Yervand Zakharyan. There were two homeowners in our apartment building who did not sign the agreements, and one day they came home and found that their apartments had been wrecked. One of them, Lilia Ghazaryan, died in hospital three days later. Should I have followed suit?” Arustamyan continued.

The protesters do not expect Yerevan mayor Taron Margaryan to meet with them in the near future; “In the past several months he was busy with the Republican campaign for the April 2 parliamentary elections, and now they are preparing to campaign for Yerevan Council of Elders elections.”