On that street, there is a student hostel. It belongs to the Avag
college in Sevan and the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the
Republic of Armenia. For years, many families have lived with the
students in the same building. Some of them are refugees from Baku, and
the rest are students from needy families who have settled here with
the help of the municipality.
In 2000, the Ministry of Education and Sciences decided to turn the
hostel over to the municipality taking into consideration the fact that
the college does not really need a hostel and it can not take care of
all the expenses. Until today, the hostel has not been removed from the
account. The hostel’s superintendent Suren Galstyan says that they have
come to terms with the city council concerning that issue, but for some
reason the city council has not started any legal proceedings. Mr.
Galstyan thinks that the reason for this is that the college has agreed
to hand in the hostel under one condition: six rooms must be left for
the college and then the city council can do whatever it wants with the
rest of the building. However, the city council has disagreed because
it wants the hostel in its entirety. “It is not clear when this issue
will be solved,” says the superintendent. The building is decaying and
turning into a junkyard day by day.
Nearly forty families (108 people) have contracts for hostel
settlement. “To tell you the truth, they are not good people,” says the
superintendent, “it has already been a couple of years that we are
trying to collect the rent.” Starting from last year, the rent for
living in the building is 300 drams a month. “They don’t even pay
that,” informs the superintendent, “extremely poor people have gathered
in that building. They have no jobs and no means of survival. We wanted
to collect 300 drams from each person to take care of the problems with
the building, and they are not even paying that”. “How can we give the
money?” say the residents of the building. They were not able to think
of at least one person in the building who has a job. “All we have are
the few pennies from “Paros”, the children’s subsidy and elderly
pension. Should we give that too? Our daily nutrition does not even
reach 300 drams.” “I am a woman, but I go and ask that they let me mow
the grass so I can earn some money. I collect copper and aluminum so I
can have two pennies,” says one middle-aged woman.
The water-pipelines and sewer have been deteriorated for a very long
time. The residents bring buckets of water from the neighboring
buildings and nearby car washes. “They want money for the water bill,
but do I have water to put a water meter?” The commodities in the
building are the same for everyone. There are two bathrooms on each
floor. There is so much dirt in the bathrooms that it has spread
through the hallways. Instead of going to the bathroom, the residents
go outside or stay in the room. “We have collected money a thousand
times and have had the bathrooms cleaned,” say the residents, “but for
whom? It’s the same thing. The sewer has to be completely changed.”
They say that “we don’t invite guests because we are ashamed.” “On
rainy nights, if someone from outside looks at my window, he will
probably think that this woman is epileptic. I move the beds from one
side to the other so that they don’t sleep under the water dripping
from the roof,” says a resident living on the fourth floor, “the walls
have decayed from the humidity, they decay without touching them. We
sleep and wake up waiting for the day when this building will collapse
so that both the building and the residents can be free.”
Before the elections, the mayor had promised to do something about the
building whether or not he gets elected. He got elected, helped out
each family by providing them with 20 kilograms of flour and then
forgot the rest. “We are thankful that they are not kicking us out of
here. Otherwise, where would we go?” They have sent a heavy packet of
appeals and letters addressed to the former and present mayors and
regional chiefs. “We collect pennies to write a letter, send it to the
regional council. We get there somehow. They say yes, we know, go and
we will take care of that. They came to check the building out, wrote a
record of evidence and left. What for? All our children in cradles are
sick, they take shots and we do not have enough money for medicine.”
The college administration has refrained from dealing with the building
a long time ago. “All the obligations for being a superintendent are
placed on me, but I don’t even get a salary,” says the superintendent,
“the college does not have any chance of keeping the building. I don’t
know what will happen in the end….”. Vice-Mayor R. Malkhasyan shakes
his head with disappointment: “This is one of the major issues for us.
But we have no means for buying the building.” That’s just how it is.
Gagarin
Gagarin is neither a city, nor a settlement, nor a village, nor a
district. “Gagarin is the gut of Sevan,” says vice-mayor of Sevan
Robert Malkhasyan.
Surik Hambartsumyan is the head of the territorial deparment of the
city council in Sevan. Gagarin is a territory where there have been
1900 residents until 1991. Now there are 1300. There was a time when
there were 14 large and 3 small businesses in Gagarin. The once
industrial center providing everyone with jobs, both the residents on
the coast of Sevan and even residents of Yerevan, is now left with
memories. “Our women have eaten so much chicken meat that now they say
that they are growing wings.” Today, Gagarin has nothing. The once
settlement has not had land for today’s resident to buy a piece of
land. The once factories are now monopolized and deserted. Who the new
owners are and what their plans are, nobody knows. Their names change
from time to time. The walls of the factories are the only things that
remain. Some security guards keep an eye on those walls. Every month,
some part of the wall is sold to the guards so that they can earn some
money.
There is one broken-down school in Garegin with 217 students, one
kindergarten saved by the U.S. International Development Agency and the
“Save the Children” organization, some stores which have a bigger list
of debts than variety. There is one post office building purchased by
heretics who have provided the post office with one room, there are
women who are hopelessly waiting for their husbands who have left
Gagarin to find work, a group of extremely poor people who are waiting
for someone from the neighboring villages to offer them jobs. The work
is mowing the grass, anything related to cultivating the land,
construction from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. for 1000 drams a day. This is
the best offer and it depends on the season. Men rise early in the
morning and leave the house because “there are always fights in a home
with the unemployed”. Poverty has spread the Gagarintsis with a unique
smell.
There has been one wedding in Gagarin this year. The first grade class
has 14 students. “Next year, there will not even be half that number,”
says S. Hambartsumyan.
Instead of residents, the number of heretics has increased in Gagarin.
In order to solve any problem, Gagarin must close the Yerevan-Sevan
highway. That is how they solved the gas problem. The water issue had
reached the boiling point until the corresponding bodies decided to be
generous and now Gagarin is provided with 2-3 hours of water daily.
“There is no salvation for Gagarin if the government does not do
anything,” say residents of Gagarin. “One day the smell of our carcass
might reach the city and people will come and see that we have died.”