There were new developments in the economy of Armenia this week, which mainly seem like new discoveries. One of the discovered facts is gas theft. The society is concerned about that a lot. The society is always interested in such things and is following up on the current events just like watching soap operas. For instance, it looks very much like a soap opera called “Rich people may cry too”. The society is waiting impatiently to see what will happen to Hakob Hakobyan (Choit). Several days ago, being a rich MP, he proudly sponsored the 60th anniversary of “Zvartnots” community. Now he takes action too, however, this time the actions are not a celebration. Now he is working with public prosecutors and it turns out that the NA deputy is a thief and hooligan. The fact that he was arrested was very interesting too, and it interested people more than the incidents connected with the citizens of Buzand street. Now more and more people are speaking about the properties that Hakob Hakobyan has and his conflicts with ArmRusGazard. I am going to start my common story with a tragedy that happened to a rich person since the society and authorities are indifferent to the problems of poor people. No one cares about them. Many citizens who used to live in the center of Yerevan have lost what they had; in addition, it is not clear what will happen to the citizens of “Kond” district. These citizens don’t know yet whether they will lose their houses or not. It is more than three years that a citizen registered at Leo 8 address (Margo Abrahamyan) is asking the authorities to allow her to sell her apartment. She has lived at the mentioned address since 1935. It is not difficult to find a potential buyer that wants to buy a house with a piece of land in the heart of Yerevan. The problem is the fact that the government refuses to register the contracts of those citizens for selling their houses. The mentioned lady, 86, is given the same answer by the local government bodies all the time: “Your house is in a zone that is going to be sold”. “I don’t know the juridical point of those contracts, furthermore, I don’t know whether I will live till that time or not”, wrote the old lady in her letter. Anyhow, the lady is given the same answer all the time. It seems that the property right of citizens is not protected in our country at all. Neither the legislative that has violated the law nor the old pensioner can protect his property right.
The Armenian ombudsman managed to prove in the Constitutional Court that the houses in the center of Yerevan were bought by violation of the law. The Constitutional Court declared that those agreements didn’t correspond to the law. In addition, now no one cares about the future of the houses and people that have appeared in a zone that is going to be sold. This policy looks like the Soviet policy and the current government is doing what the Soviet Union did, which is beneficial for them only. The government (i.e. officials) managed to sell the district in the center of Yerevan very easily. It went along with the mentioned process under a slogan saying “this was done for the needs of the state”. Now it is the Kond district’s turn and other districts in the center. Now property owners have appeared in “a legal blockade”, i.e. the houses located in zones that are going to be sold cannot be sold. In the Soviet era, the houses in zones that were going to be sold could not be sold due to the fact that the government had to provide new apartments for those citizens. Accordingly, it didn’t allow those families to enlarge the number of the citizens registered at their addresses. Now the government does not have such responsibilities, thus it is not justified to explain that process by “state needs” only. It is better to look for private interests of officials in such actions than state interests. In other words, in our country the interests of officials that are able to warn an 86-year old lady to wait are dominating.