The cinematographers’ union building will no longer look the same. The façade of the building has been destroyed and a new hall will be built in its place. The contractor plans on constructing a 21-story building and the owners have promised to allot 4 floors to the union. The transaction between the cinematographers’ union and the anonymous organization has caused a big scandal.
Head of the cinematographers’ union Ruben Gevorgyants says that it’s his building and he’ll do whatever he wants with it. The union is the client and has come to terms with a private company by the name of “BiznesShen”. The building’s architect is Gagik Hovhannisyan. According to our sources, G. Hovhannisyan has drawn the construction plan of the glassed building, which is located on Charents street and belongs to Arkadi Vartanyan.
Almost all 250 union members know about the transaction and it seems as though they are not against it. Based on the transaction, the territory will be enlarged, there will be two new Dolby System studios and the entire area will be remodeled. Gevorgyants was pretty clever and achieved his goal-he was very straight-forward with the union members. He called them to his office and told them about the conditions of the transaction. In fact, there are rumors flying around that the organization has offered the cinematographers apartments in the new building. Many of the cinematographers have found out about this in the press. Perhaps this only refers to some cinematographers. Most of the cinematographers don’t really picture the new building to be better than the current one, but they believe that this will benefit the union because, after all, they can’t construct a new studio alone. The union recently sold its garage where some cinematographers used to park their cars. As a result of that transaction, the union opened up a bank account. Many cinematographers look at this transaction as positive, but not everything goes smoothly. You get the impression that everyone is happy and complain at the same time; it seems as though they are doing something illegal. In general, citizens don’t like all the trade-offs that go on. Years ago, when Sergey Israyelyan was head of the union, the cinematographers, including the current head Ruben Gevorgyants, were suspicious that any construction plan would be better than the current one. Now they are all in favor of the new plan and see nothing wrong. However, they not only don’t know about the minor details, but they also don’t know the name of the new owner. Some cinematographers expressed their opinions on this serious but promising transaction.
Suren Hasmikyan, film critic: “Everyone knows that the city is going through changes. I get angry and amazed at the same time whenever I see present day Yerevan. You get the impression that they are destroying everything. I don’t see anything wrong about destroying the cinematographers’ union building. They made the offer and we accepted. The cinematographers’ union existed only by paying the rent and couldn’t start remodeling. Now, they are just destructing the glass wall lobby, which we have never used and has always been in the way. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I have seen the new plan for the lobby. It’s not a bad plan. In fact, the architect is the same architect that planned the construction of the cinematographers’ union years ago. Our area is going to enlarge by 10 meters and we will have two halls at once. One of the halls will be for theatre because the Malyan theatre needs a stage. The plan looks good, but I don’t know what it will look like in the end.”
Albert Yavuryan, cameraman: “We are currently living in a very dangerous era, when we have the bird flu epidemic, the danger of an atomic bomb. Of course, I wouldn’t like to see the union building destructed, but I think that the new building will look better. We will have new halls and entertainment centers. If parents would like to see a movie, they can leave their children in a special hall. The cinematographers were always trying to remodel the building, but weren’t able to. The thing is that we want others to do the job for us. We have waited for this for 15 years; there have been offers, but we have rejected them. We didn’t trust the benefactors because they didn’t make good proposals. But we accepted this last one. We have no guarantee that things will turn out the way we want to, but I think that even the constructors don’t know whether or not they will sell their multi-story apartments. The two movie theatres that we have today only show commercial films and leave real movies aside. I would like for the new cinema home to turn into a place where everyone can come and watch the movies they like. I am optimistic and believe that the outcome will be positive. But perhaps optimists are the lamest people.”