Grisha Tadevosyan, the mayor of the village of Noragyugh in the Kotayk Marz (province) has sold refugee Lusaber Azaryan's apartment to the secretary of the village administration, Shoghik Azizyan. Azizyan, who was also a member of the auction commission, bought the apartment for 67,775 drams (about $135) and signed the auction protocol as both buyer and seller.

Lusaber Azaryan has lived in Notagyugh for more than fifteen years, ever since she was expelled from the Dashkesan region of Azerbaijan. She settled here as a refugee, and was registered in an apartment in what was once the village ambulance station. "At the time two Kurdish and one Armenian family lived in the house," she told us. "I learned that the Kurdish families had decided to move out of the village and so their apartments would be vacant. I informed the Sovkhoz (state farm) director and the livestock technician, who is now the village mayor. I was working on the farm and they gave me permission to occupy one of the apartments. I reimbursed the Kurdish family 5,000 rubles for the renovation they had done."

Although the building contained three apartments, it was put up for auction as a single entity. What Mayor Tadevosyan has done, in fact, is divide it up between his secretary and his daughter; the second buyer is the mayor's son-in-law.

At the end of 2003, the administration secretary told Lusaber Azaryan that the apartment she was occupying had been sold and she had to move; otherwise they would have to evict her family. But subsequently, Azaryan told us, the mayor denied that the apartment had been sold. "After I was convinced he was lying, I appealed to the Kotayk Marzpet's Office," the refugee said. "They responded that since 1989 I have been occupying the apartment illegally-I have not paid the rent, and that on August 5, 2003 an auction was held which I showed no interest in participating in, and the apartment was sold."

But Azaryan told us she had gone to the village mayor many times trying to find out how much rent to pay, and had been told that since no one else in the building paid rent, she didn't have to, either. "The mayor carefully hid the fact that the apartment had been sold. I had asked many times that if they decided to sell the apartment, I be allowed to buy it. Over the last fifteen years we have renovated the apartment, changed the tiles on the roof, built a garage, and so on," she said.

The mayor had no right to put the apartment up for auction. Government Decision # 558 of 1992 forbids "adopting decisions allocating apartments illegally occupied by refugees to other persons. before providing them with other apartments or dwellings, or before solving problems related to their moving to other places for residence." Even if the mayor ignores the government decision, Lusaber Azaryan has a priority right to buy the apartment in question, and she is prepared to pay the same price.