For seventeen years now 78-year-old pensioner Lena Vardanyan has been living with her disabled daughter in a trailer in Gyumri's Barekamutiun Park. Her son found a job seven years ago and moved with his family to Yerevan where he rents an apartment. The Vardanyans are Number 29 on the list of people in need of apartments. They were very excited when they learned that the Gyumri Mayor's Office had decided to allocate land in the park - seven hectares - to erect a monument in memory of the victims of the 1988 earthquake. "We thought they were doing a good thing, and also we could make use of the opportunity and get an apartment ahead of turn," Grandma Lena confided. "But they are telling us to rent an apartment, and only after it gets cold. I'm a pensioner with a disabled daughter. I borrowed 60,000 Drams (about $130) to buy 6 cubic meters of firewood. I asked Vardan Ghukasyan, 'What shall I do with this firewood?' and he responded, 'You just vacate the trailer, we'll sell your firewood.'"

"I don't want to become the object of their curses. That's why we'll wait until the people who live in trailers on this land get new apartments before we start construction," said Murad Muradyan, chairman of Gyumri-Renaissance , the NGO chosen to erect the memorial. Thirty-one people have been living in trailers in Barekamutiun Park since the earthquake. For seventeen years, the mayor of Gyumri has promised to provide these homeless people, on the list for apartments, with shelter.

Last August 5th , five families living in the trailers received a letter from the Mayor's Office suggesting that they vacate Barekamutiun Park . The residents rejected the conditions of the proposal, which instead of offering apartments in a new building gave them the prospect of either renting apartments or occupying vacant apartments in the damaged building located at 144 Yerevan Highway.

The Mayor's Office applied to court requesting that the residents be expelled from the park. Judge Eduard Manukyan of the Court of First Instance of the Shirak Marz rejected the demand. "First, there were no grounds for instituting proceedings; the residents had never signed any contract with the Mayor's Office," the judge explained. "I met with the residents in late August. Of course, they want to use the fact that the territory has to be promptly vacated to get new apartments, but we all know that no construction is taking place in the city and they cannot be included in the Certificate for Buying a House state program either, at least this year. But providing them with apartments in a damaged building was not a solution, either. Especially since all the apartments in 144 Yerevan Highway are occupied. The only solution the Mayor's Office could offer at the time was to rent apartments for them."

Judge Eduard Manukyan advised the mayor's representative to change the conditions they proposed to the residents. First, the Mayor's Office, not the residents, should find the apartments. Then, the proposed amount for the rent should be increased from 10,000 dram to 20,000 dram. For reasons the residents don't understand, the negotiations have been interrupted for two months. And assuming that no construction would be carried out this year, they began getting ready for the winter with a clear conscience.

According to what the residents have heard, the energetic digging that has begun on the site is aimed not at implementing the construction work as soon as possible but at showing President Kocharyan, who is scheduled to visit Gyumri on December 7th, that something is being done. "But why at our expense?" asked Victoria Khachatryan, resident of trailer # 234/169. "We've learned that this organization doesn't have enough money. They announced that they would do fund-raising to build the monument. And if they had to start the construction, they should have at least solved our problems." The residents agree to vacate the trailers only if they receive their own apartments. "If we agree now to go and live in rentals, in one year we'll end up in the streets," Khachatryan explained. "Either they'll pay the rent for a couple of months then stop paying and throw us onto the streets, or we'll keep wearing ourselves out for another 17 years as renters. Today it is the Marzpet's (Governor's) Office that is supposed to provide the apartments. What if in one year the marzpet says: 'Go and demand apartments from the man who promised them to you,' i.e. Vardan Ghukasyan, what are we supposed to do then? And also, we found out that those who buy the land have to provide us with apartments. If the organization doesn't have the money, let the Mayor's Office buy the apartments for us. Vardan kept talking about the city's billion-dram budget on TV. Is there nothing in that budget for people like us?"

Murad Muradyan, who is chairman of Giumri-Renaissance and the initiator of the project to build the monument, sees nothing strange about the fact that the digging has begun in late November when it might be called off at any moment due to snow, to resume again in the spring. He termed the attitude of the residents "nothing but caprice."

There are 31 people living on the territory of Barekamutiun Park. Five trailers are subject to immediate removal. Three families have already resigned themselves to the idea of renting apartments. Grandma Lena was once again invited to the Mayor's Office to discuss the matter, and the family of Victoria Khachatryan was allowed to stay in the trailer till spring. "What's so great about their letting us stay?" she wondered. "They're going to dig a hole right next to our doorstep. We'll fall into it when we open the door. They've shut my water off. In a week they'll cut the electricity and the telephone lines, and we'll be under siege. They live in nice apartments; they can't understand how hard it is to live in a trailer. Soon they're going to try to turn us into enemies of the nation, as though we are against this sacred cause. Let them. We are not against it, but not at our expense. They can raise some additional money and construct a building to house these 31 people. We don't have the strength to remain homeless for another 17 years."

Photographs by Onnik Krikorian