Epress.am News from Armenia
Yerevan mayor Taron Margaryan decided on Monday that the traders who keep stalls in the open-air market on Yerevan’s Firdusi street have to leave the territory. The decision itself did not come as a surprise to the traders: the idea of shutting down the Firdusi market was put forward back in 2010, when the city authorities cracked down on street traders on Yerevan’s Komitas and Tigran Mets avenues, insisting that street trade negatively impacted the appearance of the city. It was, however, unexpected that the authorities gave the traders only a week to leave.
The municipality has promised to relocate the 200 traders to other retail outlets in the city, mainly to businessman Khachatur Sukiasyan’s Yerevan Fair trade center, and oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan’s Arinj Mall. The stall-keepers, however, are not at all happy over the prospect of moving to these trading centers as stalls are too expensive there and trade is not so good.
“Here we pay 50 thousand drams for 2 square meters, whereas in these malls the pay is over 200 thousand drams. Besides, the stalls are too large; we don’t have enough goods to keep such large stalls. Some of us have relocated to Yerevan Fair, and they are now complaining that trade is dead there. Two hundred families starving; should we join their ranks? Most of the traders here will stop working at all, but they won’t accept the offer to relocate,” one of the traders told our reporter.
The municipality representative who came to the market on Tuesday morning tried to justify the decision by claiming that the traders had not been making stall payments to the city budget for years. This statement angered the traders, but they had no way to prove otherwise; the traders say none of them know who they are paying the rent money to. Some of them told our reporter that the market has an owner or owners, who, in turn, have their own “guys” who collect the monthly payments. The traders, however, have neither personal nor contact details for these people.
Recall, by a 2007 government decree this territory was recognized as having eminent public interest, and developing Glendale Hills Company purchased the rights to carry out construction projects on the street itself and the nearby area.
The Firdusi traders do not know what exactly the company intends to build on the market site. “We only know that they want to create an entertainment zone and an underground [multi-facility center] because one of the residents of a nearby building has been promised a stall in this new center,” one of the traders said.