Ararat Tsovyan feeds his family by repairing eyeglasses. His shop at 15 Pushkin Street was demolished on government orders, as part of the work on Hyusisayin (Northern) Avenue. He was given the dram equivalent of US$ 8200 as compensation, as well as the right to rent a 20-square-meter property adjacent to 15a Pushkin, in order to open another shop.

The decision (no. 2320-A, dated 01.12.2003) of Yerevan Mayor Yervand Zakharyan allowed Tsovyan to receive a ten-year lease for 20 sq. m. of property adjacent to 15a Pushkin. He followed procedure and signed a contract to rent the property and received the lease after which he obtained permission to start building, designed the project plan, agreed it with authorities and began construction. "During construction, some people approached my builders a number of times and said, 'Don't build it in vain. If it's in Flash's way, it'll be torn down anyway," said Tsovyan.

The property allocated to Tsovyan is also adjacent to 19,Pushkin a building which now belongs to Flash ltd. The company bought the building after offering compensation to its residents, demolished it, and is now constructing a new building for Armcapbank, which it owns.

Flash ltd. is one of Armenia's largest importers of petroleum products. According to the data of the Competition Conservation Commission, Flash is in second place among petroleum product importers, providing 25-28% of the diesel available in Armenia. Barsegh Beglaryan is the founder and president of Flash. More than 1/4 of the petroleum market belongs to this company and it has more than 200 employees. Besides this, Flash is the main shareholder in the Nairit chemical plant. Barsegh Beglaryan, who also owns Flash, has started doing business in Nagorno-Karabakh as well.

On March 10, 2005, equipment belonging Flash ltd. was used to demolish Tsovyan's half-built shop. "They tore it down, used some of the material to build toilets for their laborers, and took the rest away in broad daylight," said Tsovyan.

Flash offered a different description of what had happened - "We didn't tear down his shop, the office of the mayor did. When we were tearing down the building in order to build another one, Samvel Danielyan, the head architect of Yerevan, was present, as were the heads of two City Hall departments [he couldn't remember which departments] and two policemen. The City Hall representatives said that Tsovyan's shop had to be torn down too, because the mayor had taken a wrong decision in this regard - architecturally speaking, such land allocation is unsound - besides which the shop was not in accordance with the blueprints. So, it was the mayor's office that tore it down, not Flash. It's just that City Hall asked for our excavator, and we provided it, which is why the pictures show Flash equipment being used," said Moushegh Elchyan, vice-president of Flash ltd., "Now Tsovyan can come and build his shop, we don't want his land at all, but we will cause problems, because we don't like that structure."

Contrary to Elchyan's assurances that they don't want Tsovyan's land, it turned out that the atrium of the future bank had already been built there, and a parking lot is planned below it. Elchyan claimed that after the shop was demolished, the mayor's office asked Flash to help Tsovyan in order to keep things quiet, since it was in Flash's best interests as well to keep that land free.

"If Tsovyan's shop had indeed strayed from the original blueprints, then he should have been by fined or warned by City Hall or the State Department of Construction and told to bring things back to plan. But that was not the case. I've conducted a legal investigation at the mayor's office and discovered that Tsovyan had the necessary documents to build his shop and that it was not torn down by City Hall," said Karen Mejlumyan, Tsovyan's lawyer.

Flash ltd. insists that Tsovyan's shop was torn down on the orders of head architect Samvel Danielyan as well as two heads of department at City Hall, and in their presence. In reply to a written query, G. Khangeldyan, the head of the Department of Construction and Land Supervision at City Hall, said that the mayor's office had not ordered the demolition of Tsovyan's shop. Besides this, an investigation by the prosecutors' offices in the Central and Nork-Marash municipalities also proved that City Hall could have no legal basis to order the demolition of that shop. One can assume the following based on all this - either Flash vice-president Elchyan has committed slander against the high-ranking City Hall officials or head architect Danielyan has abused his position by deeming that legally constructed structure to be "architecturally unsound", just to serve Flash's interests. In the abundance of illegal and "architecturally unsound" structures in Yerevan, the head architect picked this legal half-built shop. It is a point of interest as to whether the head architect was authorized to declare the mayor Zakharyan's judgment wrong and verbally overrule a written decision, or whether the mayor would tolerate such impertinence if it did not serve the interests of Flash ltd.

Tsovyan awaits the decision of the Prosecutor General. A decision has to be taken as to whether to file a criminal case or dismiss the charges. In case of dismissal, Tsovyan is preparing to appeal the case to a superior body or the court of review.

"Flash had offered Tsovyan land in a different location, or a compensatory sum of money, but he refused. Now we offer nothing. City Hall tore it down, let City Hall compensate his loss," insisted Elchyan. He is probably trying not contadict Flash's slogan- "Our good reputation is our dearest capital."