On May 5th the Municipality of the village of Teghut, located in the Tavush Marz, held an auction for a 1,190 square meter parcel of land in the community’s “Haghartzin Yal” neighborhood. A public announcement regarding the land sale was published in the April 4th edition of the “Hayastani Hanrapetutyun” newspaper.

It was announced that the auction would begin at 12 noon. Gevorg Tamrazyan, who was supposed to have conducted the auction, was not in Teghut but rather in Yerevan on personal business.

When employees of the Municipality learnt of our desire to be present at the auction Mr. Tamrazyan telephoned and said that the auction would begin at 3 p.m. This wasn’t the first violation of the auction guidelines. All those wishing to participate in the auction had to present their claims to the Teghut Municipality at least three days before the auction date.

Claims of two individuals for the land sale, Seyran Hovsepyan and Aleksandr Badalyan, have an interesting coincidence to them in that both show the same erasure mark. The two claims were originally filled out in May but the dates were later erased and the date of April 30th was substituted. No matter, at 3 p.m. the auction of the land parcel intended for residential housing began. The parcel was being sold off at the Cadastre (Real Estate Registry) evaluation of 222 drams per 1 square meter. Thus the starting price for the land was 265,000 drams. The auction proceeded in the expected manner. Yerevan resident Seyran Hovsepyan made a 5% increase bid which was followed by Aleksandr Badalyan, another Yerevan resident, raising the bid by another 5%. The Village Mayor, with a stroke of his wooden mallet, declared an end to the bidding and Mr. Badalyan walked away, the proud owner of a 1,190 sq. meter piece of land at 291,000 drams.

The auction could have lasted longer, something that Mr. Badalyan attested to, “As a matter of fact I was ready to go even higher to get the land because I really want to build a house here with my own two hands.” He said that he’s an architect by profession and thus he’d have no problem doing so. He also stated that his grandfather was from Ijevan and that the land “drew him” here. Seyran Hovsepyan, who traveled 100 kilometers from the capital just to execute one step in the auction, didn’t feel disappointed after loosing out. Surprisingly, after the auction ended Mr. Hovsepyan got into Mr. Badalyan’s foreign car and the two drove back to Yerevan together. Gevorg Tamrazyan claimed that in 2007 seven parcels of land were auctioned off with two parcels already sold in the current year.

When we asked the Mayor what were the reasons behind land sales in Teghut, were where land is scarce, he answered, “There are several. The village is faced with many problems that must be resolved and this requires financing. With the assistance of the World Food Programme we are constructing a water distribution system. The community must invest 4.5 million drams of its own resources towards this and we don’t expect to find other sources of funding for this. By selling off land we are solving the water issue on the one hand and on the other, lands not presently being utilized will be built upon and the village will expand. The community’s tax base will also grow as a result. In other words, it’s a win-win situation in all respects.”

However, to substantially replenish the community’s budget “real” auctions must take place with large numbers of participants. This is especially the case since the Mayor himself attests to the fact that many of Teghut’s 1,600 residents are financially able to do so. In fact, he told one of the reporters at the scene that it would be great if local residents also participated in the bidding process.

On the first floor of the Teghut Municipal Building we saw all kinds of announcements tacked on the walls but there wasn’t anything regarding the sale of the 1,190 sq. meter parcel of land in question.

Mayor Tamrazyan assured us that all Teghut residents had been informed of the auction since he personally called on members of the Village Council to spread the news throughout their respective neighborhoods. When we spoke to a group of local residents who had gathered across from the Municipal Building we were told something different. Village residents Yurik Tamrazyan, Ararat and Aghasi Hakhverdyan and Razmik Yengibaryan stated that they had been unaware of the auction. Furthermore, Renik Babinyan, one of the more active members of the Village Council, was also in the dark about the auction. He told us that while he knew that the parcel was up for sale he knew nothing about the May 5th auction. Neither did he know where that particular parcel of land was located. All he could state was that he believed the parcel belonged to Alvard Hakhverdyan, a local resident who had fenced it off years ago, and that the auction would merely serve to validate who the rightful owner actually was.

Even more curious was the statement of Albert Hovhannisyan, the Deputy Mayor, that news of the land sale had been published in the “Hayastani Hanrapetutyun” daily newspaper. When I asked him how many copies of the paper were delivered to the village he firmly stated, around 50. When he saw the look of disbelief on our faces he offered up a wry smile.

At the Municipal Building both the Village Mayor and the auction winner Mr. Aleksandr Badalyan both stated that the piece of land sold was rocky and not suitable for construction. We proposed to the Mayor that we all should go and inspect the site which was alongside the road adjacent to the water, gas and electric lines and pipes. When we got there the only rocks we saw were two rather small ones. From the site a beautiful view of the Dilijan National Park forests opened up before us. The parcel wasn’t located in some non-populated area as we were told but rather next to a group of homes. The Mayor’s house was just 50 meters away.

The village of Teghut, with a population of 1,600, only has 11 hectares of arable land to till and 71 hectares of land adjoining homes. The ever expanding community is thus feeling the pinch when it comes to house plots. The Municipality seeks to resolve this problem at the expense of uncultivated lands registered for agricultural use. In order for these lands to be used for the construction of residential housing the village must first apply to the government for appropriate zoning changes to be made.

Teghut is a mere eight kilometers from the health resort of Dilijan. By a decision of the government Dilijan is envisaged to be transformed into a financial center for the country. Many residents of Yerevan dream of owning a piece of property along the road leading to the Haghartzin Monastery in the Teghut region. Pensioner Razmik Yengibaryan angrily declares that, “Those people from Yerevan have taken over the village…just look at the road leading up to Haghartzin.”