The facts that large cracks have appeared ին apartment walls and that the State Urban Construction Inspectorate found a number of building code violations, hasn’t stopped Ashot Simonyan from digging away underneath the landmark building at 32 Abovyan Street in downtown Yerevan.

Workers were back at the site earlier today with picks and shovels, prompting nervous residents upstairs, afraid that the building’s foundations are being weakened, to call the mayor’s hot line and other municipal agencies.

Unfortunately, no one from the city picked up the phone, given that today is a non-work day. Hopefully, the building will stand upright till Monday.

Building resident Sedrak Arakelyan told Hetq that a work blueprint is affixed to the tarp surrounding the work site and it doesn’t show the tree that now stands on the sidewalk.

Simonyan told this reporter that the tree will remain standing.

“It never even crossed my mind to touch that tree,” he said.

Simonyan also said that all ongoing construction is according to the work permit he received.

Building residents, however, have consistently pointed to numerous violations. A top concern of theirs is that the basement construction is weakening the foundations of the 78 year-old structure. Cracks have appeared in their walls and some doors no longer close properly.

Simonyan claims that the violations uncovered by the Inspectorate have been taken care of.

He scoffed at the idea that serious problems have plagued the construction work.

“Hey, it’s an old building. Those cracks aren’t my doing. They examined those cracks and found no structural damage.”

Simonyan failed to name which organization or agency had conducted the examination.

The builder originally wanted to operate a cafe or restaurant in the basement. After residents complained, Simonyan is now talking about opening some kind of store.