Serving the homeland

The Army generals who are the so-called guarantors of law and order in the army don't obey the laws themselves-they prefer to give orders. One sections of Yerevan caught these generals' fancy and they decided to build their mansions here. And the city mayor's office handled this situation by organizing tenders with the sole purpose of legalizing illegal allocations of land.

In the beginning there were trees

In April 2002 the results of the tender organized by the mayor's office were announced. General Arshaluis Paityan became the owner of one of the plots located between Azatutian Avenue and Babayan Street. We remind you that he seized this land years ago without any legal right, fenced it in, and began construction work. The mayor's office decided to deal with the headache of legalizing the general's occupation all at once - it organized a tender for the illegally appropriated land plots. Those who had seized the land bid for the land (they even brought in some people to make sure that there were alternative bids for each plot). Naturally, they won the tenders and became the lawful owners of the land.

That was how it was done for two other generals, Seyran Saroyan and Haykaz Baghmanyan, as well. The regulation on legalizing constructions built on one's property without an approved design or in violation of an approved design is still in force. Note-on one's own property, not on somebody else's. So the mayor's office had to organize a tender; otherwise the generals would have been left without a roof over their heads.

We followed the organization of the April 4, 2002 tender. It was closed, as required by the law, so we observed the process from outside. And indeed, there was a lot to see. People who were bidding for the same plots of land, and were thus competitors, arrived together, chatted amicably outside the hall, went in together, and emerged later looking very satisfied.

They were apparently representing Arshaluis Paityan, as it is hard to imagine that one Private Petrosyan would seriously aim to acquire the land that held General Paityan's mansion.

"It's quite possible that no one wants these lands. Such a thing can happen. I don't want to say that people are afraid. They simply know whom these lands belong to. And such a thing can happen. How should I know? And even if I knew, what should I do? I know that this particular person should "win" and he just brought somebody to participate for the sake of appearances. There is a law, what can I do? If there are two participants, the tender has to take place. And they are so sly that they even raise the price, so we don't get suspicious. Today, for example the price was raised by 10%, and 10% of this plot is 300,000 drams," Ashot Babayan, the head of the financial department of the mayor's office, explained.

"Land plots for building residences are allocated though tenders. An announcement must be published in the press. The legal requirements have been fully met, and as far the other issues are concerned, I prefer to keep quiet," Narek Sargisyan, the city's chief architect, said.

The funniest part of this story is that it is against the law to hold a tender in this part of the city-land allocations are forbidden here.

"In your previous article on this subject you asked whether the mayor's office has time to legalize all illegal constructions. Unfortunately, both the sarcasm and the implication are understandable. I'm not trying to avoid it. Unfortunately, that's the situation here. In other words, as the city government we are unable to supervise the entire city. So it turns out that we follow the developments instead of. But I acknowledge that there might have been cases when people came and built houses on a plot of land. But for us, this is free land, and people can come and take part in auctions," Narek Sargisyan continued.

The fact that construction work, which the tender process was supposed to have prevented, has already been done on these plots does not worry Sargisyan. "It's not construction work, they just fenced the plots in. But it has no legal grounds. For us, it's a territory for city planning."

But we saw new construction inside the fences. And General Paityan's fence is right in the middle of North Avenue. The municipal officials we talked to avoided mentioning the generals' names, apparently awed by their epaulettes. Instead they referred to "the land owner", "the land holder", etc.

Several months after the April tender, the land seized by Generals Saroyan and Baghmanyan was put up for auction. Of the 3,000 square meters of land occupied by Seyran Saroyan, 400 square meters were taken away. Before the tender, the city's chief architect said: "We will put the remaining land up for auction and whoever wins will be the owner." This was said, of course, just for the record - the generals will never give up the lands they have seized. The 400 square meters had been allocated to General Saroyan by then-Mayor Albert Bazeyan. When we asked whether he had been aware of the general layout of the city, Bazeyan said: "Saroyan applied for a land allocation like any other ordinary citizen. No instructions were given to anybody on this matter. The chief architect could have rejected the request if there had been any problem. There is a commission of experts which gives their professional opinion, and the final determination is made by the chief architect."

We should point out that the chief architect at the time was Narek Sargisyan. The size of the plot occupied by General Baghmanyan, who was the first to be quartered here, is unknown. According to our rough calculations it is about 4,000 square meters. We have yet been able to find out what portion of it has been legalized.

In general, a tradition has developed of granting favors at the expense of these green territories. Suren Abrahamyan did it for Lyudmila Harutiunyan, Robert Nazaryan for Haykaz Baghmanyan, Artashes Paityan, and so on.

Edik Baghdasaryan, Arevhat Grigoryan