In the series We Know Who the Owners Are we presented the real owners of land in Oghakadzev (Circle) Park, the Opera Park and the public park near Babayan Street .
This stone structure being built in the Circle Park is completely illegal. The Mayors Office has issued a general prohibition against building stone structures in public parks. According to the design approved by the city’s architecture department, a 40 square-meter café made of light construction materials was supposed to be built here.
Last August we asked the minister of ecology, Vardan Aivazyan, about the destruction of the green areas of Yerevan, and he said, “Unfortunately, those areas don’t lie within our jurisdiction.”
When people make plans to meet at the Meghedi (Melody) Café, they often refer to it as the Dashnaks’ café. In 1997 former Yerevan Mayor Vano Siradeghyan gave the 20-square-meter plot where the café now stands to a member of the Dashnaktsutiun Party, Mikayel Manukyan, to build a pavilion. We have been unable to find out who persuaded Siradeghyan to do so.
Many people remember the public toilet near the Opera House. When the Soviet Union fell apart, this restroom did, too. It was out of order for years, and became a gathering place for homeless people. On August 14, 2002, Yerevan Mayor Albert Bazeyan (decision # 1006) granted the public toilet and an adjacent 650-square-meter plot of land in the park near the Opera House to Atlas, Ltd. to “reconstruct the toilet (italics mine), and build an...
In early 2002, then-mayor of Yerevan Robert Nazaryan granted Magnolia Ltd a 20-square-meter site.
None of the cafes in the center of Yerevan have been built by outsiders. The names of the owners may not reveal it, but there are influential senior officials behind them all the same. We continue our introductions of those who have occupied the public park surrounding the Opera House.
Thus, Khachatryan got his 20 square meter site and he expanded it. The structure now obstructs the view the Opera House fromSayat Nova Street. It may still be possible to halt construction. A few months ago, we asked Narek Sarkissyan,Yerevan’s chief architect, if any of the new structures around the Opera House preserved the design that the city’s architecture department had approved. He said they did not.