As if selling the yards of apartments wasn’t enough, the municipality of the city of Yerevan is now planning on selling the yards belonging to the institutes located in the city. Frankly, selling the yards is pretty profitable. Those institutes are located in very good locations and have better yards.
This time, the next achievement of the municipality was the sale of the yard belonging to the Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. In addition, this was done without the permission granted by the administration. Meanwhile, according to the 62nd article of the ”Land code”, selling state lands is only possible after the owner of the lands agrees to sell it. It is obvious that that was not the case here. The municipality sold those yards as an auction at a price equivalent to the one we pay for water. During the first auction, the 5800 square meters was sold and there were already three completed and one incomplete construction. One of the constructions is located on the street of Griboyedov; it is a hotel, and the other is incomplete. The other two are a little far from the street and close to the administrative buildings of the institute. According to the workers, those yards are also going to become a place for restaurants. The four constructions are ”secured” from the institute by a 3-4 meter gate. This territory was put up for auction way back in 2003 December, before mayor Robert Nazaryan came to office. Yervand Zakharyan had confirmed the results based on the 1499-A decision made on August 6th, 2003. In the same year, three residents were sold the rest of the territory: Suren Mkrtchyan purchased 800 square meters, Iveta Davtyan bought 400 square meters and Armen Gevorgyan bought 3,000 square meters. According to the official statistics given by the state cadastre committee, A. Gevorgyan has purchased his 3,000 square meter territory for 3.4 million dollars. On December 26th, 2003, Manuk Vardanyan, who is the head of the state cadastre committee, has stated the following in his conclusion statement directed to Mayor Yervand Zakharyan: “It appears that the auctions were just a formality and the prices proposed during the auctions did not correspond to the actual market price of the territories. In addition, 500 square meters of the 3000 square meter territory belonging to A. Gevorgyan was sold for 8 million drams in August.” The remaining 2,500 square meters have also been sold, however, there has not been any price reduction. Buying that whole territory, he has made a profit of 40 million drams. It is kind of hard to believe that A. Davtyan has only paid 3.4 million dram for his huge territory.
As for the owners of the sold territories, they have made tries to construct buildings around that area. They have burnt the dried grass surrounding the territory, brought a crane and tried to destruct the gate. The workers at the institute have gathered and kicked them out saying “To hell with those confiscators”, but that is just one side of the story. The administration has even asked the Prime Minister and corresponding bodies to help solve the situation. They have even sued the municipality. The verdict was reached in favor of the municipality in all three court instances. In 2002, by the decision of the government, the cadastre workers have taken some measurements around the territory, after which this whole story began. You get the impression that they took these measures in order to make sure how much territory there is to sell. They have only taken measures of the surface and have not done further investigation. However, the underground D 729 millimeter diameter gas pipeline runs through the 3000 square meter land. According to the rules of the “Gas distribution systems” and gas economical security, the base of the buildings must be far from the gas pipeline no less than seven meters. The sewer and gas pipeline passes through the whole territory of the General and Inorganic Chemistry Institute. This means that the owners of the territories will construct their restaurants and homes on this communal system. There is no guarantee that the high pressure gas pipeline will not explode and destroy the buildings surrounding the territory, thus, causing damage to the institute. The communal system will also be in danger and according to owner of the institute S. Davtyan, the elimination of that system will be the equivalent to eliminating the institute.
The General and Inorganic Chemistry Institute studies the lithosphere of Armenia. Today, a large part of Armenia’s lithosphere is ruined by the oligarchs and foreign proprietors. The state deputies probably do not even care about the General and Inorganic Chemistry Institute and that is why destructing the institute does not really matter to them. But what they don’t know is that high technologies, such as nanotechnologies, are being researched at the institute.
There are ores in Armenia which contain iron oxides,” says owner S. Davtyan. “If we receive small amounts of those oxides, their price will increase, they will be applied and sold both in Armenia and abroad. We already receive those oxides here at the institute. If we reduce the measures of aluminum oxides, let’s say down to the minimum, we will make huge profits and increase the level of energy technologies. These methods are applied in order to receive soap powder of technological value. We have two factories involved in that and we have progressed so much that we can even collaborate with others. Instead of thinking about developing science and applying the methods, I spend all my time debating. I am tired of fighting for what I want and I am thinking about going back to Russia. Throughout the years, I realized that science is not important to us. Starting from January of next year, the salary of an average scientist in Russia will become $1000 dollars, whereas here in Armenia that salary is 22,000 dram, which is approximately fifty dollars. The state does not even let you work in these conditions. They keep creating problems.”
We tried to find out who was stealing the territories of scientific value and what were they using it for. According to the workers at the institute, there is only one owner of the three buildings near the “stolen” territories. The first building was a hotel-restaurant and two of the people inside the hotel represented themselves as the owners. When I tried talking with them, they got furious and told me to leave, claiming that the other two buildings are not theirs. The security officer advised me to not get involved in transactions that had already been “done”. The second building, according to the workers of the institute, is also a hotel but can not be seen.
“Anything can happen here at night,” says one of the workers. “But after all, this building is near the yards belonging to the institute and the entrance is from our yard. Now they want to take our roads so they can enter and exit freely. They plan on constructing new hotels and restaurants in the newly bought territories. What should we do then? Pack up and leave?”
In addition, the yard of the Nurb organic chemistry institute located at the end of the street of Azatutyun is also in the same situation. A two story building has been constructed there and rumor has it that that belongs to head of the police department of the Shirak region Khachik Asatryan. Of course, Mr. Asatryan denied this and advised us to ask the Cadastre and municipality to make sure. According to our sources, Khachik Asatryan has registered that building under the name of his relatives.