Grigor Khurshudyan, a resident of Avshar, a community in Armenia’s Ararat Province, does not send his youngest child to kindergarten.

The rural community lacks a public kindergarten and the private one charges 40,000 drams ($84) per month. Kindergartens in the neighboring town of Ararat charge 22,000 drams.

Khurshudyan can’t pay this amount. He says it’s tough for someone farming the land to save the money.

Only the eldest of his three children went to kindergarten.

Grigor Khurshudyan

“We plan to build a smaller kindergarten corresponding to the needs of the 21st century that will be furnished with all the amenities to house the 150 children we estimate,” he said.

"We pay taxes and fees to the community to get something back. If we don’t get anything, we won’t pay. We’ll use the money to send our kids to a better place, to pave our street or install a house light.  What’s the sense of paying taxes? We pay to get the roads fixed and lighted, and to improve conditions for the children. To date, however, we don’t even have this. It's a big village, but it doesn't have a kindergarten. Is it normal for us to pay taxes and get nothing in return?” asks Khurshudyan.

“If most people can’t afford to pay the 22,000 drams to send their kids to kindergartens in Ararat, how can they pay the 40,000 for the private kindergarten,” he adds.

During the Soviet era, a kindergarten comprised off three buildings was built in Avshar. Only one was used for classes. The other two remained incomplete until last year.

The Avshar Municipal Council, in 2016, included the kindergarten in its four-year capital renovation plan. of the kindergarten in a four-year community development plan.

The national government allocated funds for the project the following year but the AMD 35 million had to be returned because the school was so far gone that renovations were senseless.

At the end of 2017, the Avshar Municipal Council decided to dismantle the all three kindergarten buildings.

Local children no longer had a public kindergarten.

The school’s property was put up for auction. No public information is available about the auction results.

When Hetq visited the site, workers were busy dismantling the buildings, including the one that had been housing the kindergarten.

On January 14, 2020 the Ararat Municipal Council convened a special session and decided to charge the discounted monthly amount of 5,000 drams to kindergarten children coming from Avshar.

Many Avshar residents believe that something funny is going on behind the scenes.

They say that Rubina Davtyan, who opened the Lapterik Day Center in Avshar, is friends with the family of Avshar Mayor Sourik Grigoryan. The implication is that she used her ties with the mayor to get the kindergarten registered as unsafe and destined for demolition.

Lapterik Day Center

Yerevan resident Davtyan denied the charges and told Hetq that she didn’t even know that Avshar had no kindergarten. She said she doesn’t know the mayor or his family.

Given that Mayor Grigoryan was out, Avshar Municipal Council Secretary Hovik Ghukasyan told Hetq that the council’s construction committee had appraised the kindergarten as unsafe and fit for demolition.

Hovik Ghukasyan

Ghukasyan said the community plans to build a new, modern kindergarten this spring with its own funds, adding that residents have started to pay their taxes on a regular basis.

“We plan to build a smaller kindergarten corresponding to the needs of the 21st century that will be furnished with all the amenities to house the 150 children we estimate,” he said.