Nowadays, only painful memories remain from the Nor Nork and Zeytun
student hostels. Almost everyone owns the once student hostels, besides
the students. Out of the former 14 student hostels listed by the
Ministry of Education and Sciences, as of today only one building and a
half serve students. Those buildings are the 6th building of the Zeytun
student hostel and the 5th and 6th floors of the 5th building.
Who are the owners?
The hostel buildings have been given to the owners for free.
In 2000, with the decision of the government, the “Zeytun” student
hostel has been turned into the “Zeytun student hostel” fund. The Board
of Trustees manages the fund. The president of the board is the
Minister of Education and Sciences. The student hostel used to have 9
buildings. With the many decisions made by the government, the 1st, 2nd
3rd and 4th buildings have been given to the European Regional Academy,
the Yerevan State Medical University is in charge of the 1-4 floors of
the 5th and 7th buildings, and the 8th and 9th buildings have been
handed in to the Kanaker-Zeytun district councils. The administrative
building, the cinema, library and buffet have also been handed in to
the European Regional Academy. President of the National Assembly is in
charge of the Academy’s Board of Trustees. “We know why the student
hostels are given for free,” say the students who have been removed
from there and have been stuffed into one building where every room (18
square meters) holds three students. As they say, “they practically
sleep in each other’s beds”. The buildings granted to the Yerevan State
Medical University have been remodeled and rooms have been primarily
for foreign students. There are also local students, mainly from the
military medicine faculty. The Ministry of Defense is responsible for
taking care of their issues. “The administration does not really want
to accept the local students,” said one student from the Medical
University, “because the local students “can not add to the profit”.
The “non-profitable” local students go to the “Zeytun student hostel”
fund, get rejected and are forced to rent themselves an apartment. “The
rooms that we have are barely enough for students from other
universities,” says executive director of the fund Vahram Mkhitaryan.
Local and refugee families reside in the building granted to the
Kanaker-Zeytun district council. Our refugee compatriots have also
occupied the remaining two buildings of the “Nor Nork student hostel”
closed joint stock company. Two of the former six buildings of Nor Nork
are currently under the ownership of the Refugee Department, one of
them belongs to the Ministry of Defense and the other has been sold.
How much does it cost to live in the hostel?
According to the regulations regarding the student hostels in the
2004-2005 school year, the students staying at the 6th building of the
Zeytun student hostel pay the state fee of 18,000 drams a year. The
students who pay tuition or study in private universities pay 25,000
drams, P.H.D. students pay 20,000 drams, and foreign students pay the
equivalent of $80 dollars in drams. The students staying at the 5th
building pay 10,000 drams more because the Medical University has
remodeled the 5th and 6th floors of that building which don’t belong to
the university. “They are doing that so that nobody will be able to
take that away from us,” say the students. “We rule the hostel provided
to the Medical University,” claim the residents of the 6th building.
The buildings are fully remodeled; the furnishings are in good
condition, and in the words of the residents: “We get warm water twice
a day. Who has heard of warm water and a shower in a hostel?” The
students staying in the 6th building are mainly from the state
university. The people who come to that building are the ones who can
rent an apartment. There are approximately 400 students staying at the
“Zeytun student hostel”. “Many students come, but since we have no more
room, we reject them,” says executive director of the fund. “There are
cases when students come beg us to let them stay. They are students who
have just been accepted into the university but have no place to stay
and have no opportunity to rent an apartment. All we have is this
building.” Three students stay in each room They all sleep, get up,
make food, do the laundry in the same room, study together and get
along just fine….The executive director of the fund says that they have
plans of remodeling the building. They have already formed the budget
and according to that they will need 38,000,000 million drams for the
remodeling of each floor. They will collect the money for the
construction from the students’ rents. “If we manage to remodel one
floor a year, it is not that bad.”
Life in the hostel
“Living in the hostel is something else. Despite the bad conditions,
whoever has lived in a hostel will never rent an apartment. Here we are
all together, we help each other through thick and thin,” say the
students. The day here generally starts early, or better yet, does not
end. The students must manage to get up early in the morning, take
turns in going to bathroom, wash up, find some time to at least drink
some coffee, talk a little and run to class. After coming home from
school and getting a bite to eat, they have to do the laundry. Then the
smell of national dishes permeates the air and it mixes with the smell
of the bathroom and the garbage. Finally, it becomes clear as to why
the hostels smell like they do. None of the students wished to say how
much he pays for daily expenses. One of the students said: “That is not
an amount to be ashamed of saying out loud.”
International relations at the hostel
At the hostel, relations between ethnic groups are not really that
tense, but they are not that smooth either. The Armenians seem to get
along fine with the foreign students. They are especially good with the
Arabs. As the Armenian students say “they are a respected people”, they
don’t like the Iranians-“if you say anything to them, they just yell
“pasolstva, pasolstva” (Iranian) and run to complain. They even tell on
each other”, “Indians are clumsy and peaceful. They just live the way
they want to live”. Arabs and Iranians do not like each other. They
claim that “they have never liked each other”.
Love at the hostel
Guys are the only ones living at the Medical University hostel
building. The university administration has separated the girls from
the boys by request of the parents. The girls’ parents are mainly the
ones who complain. Ilfan, an Indian student staying at the hostel,
says: “It’s good that they did that. The girls are a problem-they get
pregnant and then have an abortion”. Armenian girls like the foreign
students. Armenian guys are jealous of them. “They are different. They
interest girls because they have money.”
All is not sold yet
During the 1990s, according to the rule for settlement in the hostels,
if the hostel had free space, then the administration had the right to
put that space up for rent. The 4th and 5th buildings of the “Nor Nork”
student hostel closed joint stock company were occupied by needy
families and refugees during those years. Those people have lived in
the building for over 10 years and have no intentions of moving out.
According to the Chief of Economic Management and Service of the
Ministry of Education and Sciences Arayik Khachatryan, the “Nor Nork
student hostel” closed joint stock company is currently involved in the
process of registering its area in the cadastre and receiving a
corresponding certificate, after which it can appeal to the court with
the action of removing those residents. “We are doing this so that we
can provide the students with those buildings”. The residents think the
opposite: “They are going to kick us out so they can sell these
buildings.” With that said, they show the half-constructed parks near
the hostels. “Someone is making a swimming pool here, maybe they will
want a building too.” The students residing at the hostel claim that
even if they wish to take their building from them, they are assured
that nobody will fight for it. “It is hard to imagine that we can do
anything against that,” say the students and remember how their fight
against the European Regional Academy achieved no success.