Residents in the vicinity of the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia, located on Isahakyan Street, raised the alarm when trees in the surrounding park were cut down upon the orders of Arman Tzaturyan, the Orchestra’s Director.

Despite the fact that a number of trees were completely felled, as the accompanying photos show, Director Tzaturyan described what had taken place as mere “tree pruning”.

Director Tzaturyan claimed that the Orchestra staff had noticed that the city hadn’t yet performed the summer pruning of trees in the area. “Some of the local bums use the branches to climb onto the building’s roof where they make fires to cook and where they sleep. The branch of the tree they climb had dried out. We just cut that dried out branch.”

Orchestra staff at the site also asserted that the area was used by local street people to gather and carry out “all kinds of activities”. They said that the director merely gave orders to clear out any underlying brush and overhanging branches and to make the area more scenic and make it less attractive to undesirables.

Photos: Gagik Shamshyan