This was the response from the residents of the Gagarinavan settlement of the Gegharkunik region upon my arrival. As soon as I set foot in Gagarinavan, the residents came out of their houses to greet me.
The residents of Gagarinavan find it strange to see anyone from Yerevan and it doesn’t matter who goes there-they consider each person as “someone” from the government and complain as much as they can. For them, the person coming to Gagarinavan from Yerevan is the one responsible for the miserable situation they are currently in.
People go down the stairs of their balconies, push and shove to get to the journalist and tell about their social/economic status. This then turns into a reason for fights because each person wants to tell his side of the story.
The residents of the Gai street say that they “go crazy” due to unemployment. During the Soviet era, there were 17-20 factories in Gagarinavan and many people used to come there to work from different cities. At the present, the factories are liquidated and there is no money, while citizens of Gagarinavan have gone hungry and have nothing to do.
Papin Hovhannisyan settled down in Gagarinavan after the construction of the Arpa-Sevan-Hrazdan tunnel in 1951.
“We need jobs. We are a hard-working people and we can’t go on like this, with no food. Do you think our lives change just because you journalists come and go? Do you follow up on us? Just take a look at the ruins of our building. The earthquake caused all the walls of the building to crack. One day it’s just going to collapse.”
They say that the youth of Gagarinavan has gone to Russia in search of jobs and only the elders and handicapped have stayed. Some raise others’ cattle or work with the land for 1000-1500 AMD (2 dollars) daily, while some “work” and get no money.
“They make us work for no money the whole day. They know that we have nothing; they make us work until we can no longer do anything. We need real jobs,” say the elders of Gagarinavan who play backgammon the whole day in the front yard.
“Why Kocharyan, why, my son?”
It’s hard to overcome the obstacles in Gagarinavan. People have turned cruel and aren’t optimistic. It seems as though they haven’t left the years of the Soviet Union behind them because they still use the words “ruble”, “commission”, “club”. They say that most of the people have turned into Jehovah’s Witnesses or have enlisted in other sects due to unemployment and boredom.
“Many of them have gone berserk and are psychologically ill,” says one angry elderly woman who is so disappointed in the current Armenian authorities that she talks in a loud voice, making it seem like she is about to fight. I accepted her offer just to make her calm down:
“I’m an illiterate woman, but I’m asking you to please write an article and print it in the press. I’m not going to say anything. Just come to our house and take a look,” says the woman, whose house is simply terrifying. There are only some pieces of clothing in the dark room.
Her name is Lida Danielyan. I ask Lida to turn on the light because I can’t see anything. She turns on the light and I see an old man on a dirty bed. The man looks more like a dead man. That’s Lida’s husband Mayis, who is on the verge of dying and has already faced the fact that he’s slowly dying. He doesn’t go to a doctor.
Mayis is diagnosed with gangrene; he can’t move and you can’t understand a word he says. Lida and Mayis don’t have any kids. They are lonely pensioners growing old in bed.
“Why, my dear? Can we live like this at our age? My husband and I have worked in this country our entire lives. We haven’t had any kids, but we have worked. Why, Kocharyan? Why, my son?” says Lida in a crying tone. She calms down and starts referring to me and president Kocharyan as her “kids”. After mentioning Kocharyan, she says:
“I live in Apt. #38 on Gai street in Gagarinavan. I have worked for 40 years, but never did I see this kind of carelessness…We’ve gotten old, we rely on the state to support us and are dying in bed.”
As proof of that, she orders her 76-year old husband Mayis.
“Mayis, show your leg so that the journalist can be convinced that you have gangrene. Don’t be ashamed Mayis, she’s just a young girl. Show your leg or I’ll be forced to open it for you.”
Mayis doesn’t want to show his leg. He goes to his bed, wraps himself in the blackened blanket and turns around silently.
Lida says that in the winter, as she was bringing wood for the home, mayor of Gagarinavan Malkhasyan caught her and asked where she got the wood from.
“I told him that I had cut it in the forest so that I can heat the house for my husband. You can sue me if I want, I have nothing to lose. He told me not to cry and promised to install a gas pipeline and he did. We’re living like this, but the youth is leaving for Russia. The other day they brought the body of a 27-year old boy from Moscow who had been struck by electricity while working. Will you come here again? When you do, know that you’re welcome here,” says Lida, who hasn’t been in Yerevan for 20 years.
Everyone sleeps in Gagarinavan day and night
The residents of Gagarinavan are sleeping no matter whose door you knock during the day. People sleep because they have nothing to do.
Thirty-eight year old Andranik Nersisyan’s home looks like a hospital because there are metal, broken-down beds in his living room, bedroom and the balcony. Everyone is in bed. He raises his four children with the 28,000 AMD subsidy he receives from the “Paros” fund. Just like all citizens of Gagarinavan, Andranik is also unemployed. Two months ago, Andranik lost consciousness, fell on a heater and burned his arms. I can’t even describe the clothes that his four schoolchildren wear.
“I go to the municipality and the last instance courts, and the only thing they tell me is to go and live on the “Paros” subsidy that I get,” says Andranik. He says that there are times when his kids don’t even have the chance to eat dry bed.
“The commissioner here is a real benefactor-he lends us two loaves of bread until we can pay him back when I get the “Paros” subsidy.”
The Gagarinavan settlement is more like a colony
Liana Grigoryan has many kids in her house and the noise coming from the house awakens the people of Gagarinavan a little. By hearing those noises, you start to think that there is a new generation growing and that time hasn’t stopped. But as you talk with Liana, you realize that the citizens of Gagarinavan know nothing about civilization and world events. Liana gave birth to her six children at home, but 10-day old Anna is very small.
“I don’t go to the hospital because I’m afraid. They want money and I don’t have any,” says the mother of six and assures that when the clothes of the children of Gagarinavan no longer fit them, people recommend each other to give them to Liana. Liana’s mother-in-law, Isvira, is proud to say that she helped Liana give birth to her sixth child just 10 days ago.
“I cut the umbilical cord,” she says and adds that the Gagarinavan settlement is more like a colony.
Liana’s son Karen doesn’t go to school simply because he has nothing to wear. Her other son Narek had this to say while talking about the conditions they were living in:
“Do you see all the hardships that the citizens of Gagarinavan face?”
“The Rule of Law party member collected the votes and left”
There are 1900 people living in Gagarinavan of which 500 have gone abroad in search of jobs. The residential buildings have suffered a lot from the earthquake of 1988. The third-degree fault buildings endanger the lives of the residents living in them. In response to their appeals, the government says that there is no money and that their appeals are sent to the municipality.
“Our mayor Gevorg Malkhasyan has been mayor for the past four years and he is still redeeming the debts of the former mayor worth 280 million AMD,” says head of the territorial management department of the municipality Suren Hambartsumyan. He says that before, citizens of Yerevan would come to Gagarinavan to work in 20 factories. He considers the poverty in Gagarinavan as normal because he also says that there are no jobs.
“People purchased the factories, left everything in a mess, except the crystal factory owned by a couple of guys from Sevan, who have turned that into something else. This settlement was built on factories, but now the factories no longer exist. People neither have money nor land,” says S. Hambartsumyan. He calls on the authorities to create work places in Gagarinavan because there is no other way of survival. The MP of this region is Rule of Law party member Khachik Petrosyan, who has never even visited the settlement after he was elected.
“He came during the elections, said that he would do this, he would do that. But then he simply collected the votes and left,” say the people who voted for Khachik Petrosyan.