According to a 2007 decision passed by the Armenian government, dormitory apartments would be allocated free of charge to those families actually dwelling within said dormitories and who have no other permanent residence.

The dormitory located at 101 Atabekyan Street in Etchmiadzin has been inhabited with refugees fleeing Azerbaijan since 1988. According to the dictates of the government’s ruling, it should have been turned over to the residents. In addition to the nine refugee families residing at the dorm, other local families have been waiting for 20 years to get dwelling space there as well.

News of the government’s decision overjoyed dorm residents and buoyed them with newfound hope. However, when new neighbors appeared on the scene along with extensive construction work local residents realized that their days at the dormitory were numbered even though they were duly registered as residents there.

Their fear at being “invited out” of the dorm was soon in coming. Seda Yengibaryan, the Principal of the Nersisyan Institute, whose family also lives in the dorm, soon began to annoy the other residents with demands that they leave. Let us point out that the Nersisyan Institute and the dormitory fall under the same administrative jurisdiction and that it is the Institute’s governing board that assumes supervision of the dormitory.
Local dorm residents have refused to submit to the demands of the Principal. However, they are not convinced that, in the end, their resistance will result in the issue being resolved in their favor.

Older residents have come to understand that their new neighbors, with their fancy cars and dress, are there to squeeze them out.

Who are these new residents who have been allocated space in the dorm? Why the necessity to quickly move them into the building when the issue of the older residents was still up in the air?

Since the Nersisyan Institute falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education and Science, we attempted to cull some answers from them. It turned out that the Institute only has dealings with the Ministry when it comes to practical issues. Nurijan Manukyan, Head of the Ministry’s General Education Department, stated that, “We only implement programs and deal with textbooks. It’s the Armavir Regional Office that deals with matters regarding the dormitory.”

Armavir Regional Governor Ashot Ghahramanyan, in responding to the concerns of the older residents of the dorm that the newcomers have other dwellings and that they will sell off the apartments once having renovated them, stated that, “All of the newcomers are educators in bad straits. They petitioned us and we investigated their status. None has other residences. This is why we allocated them apartments.”

It was a committee of the newly created Department of Education within the Armavir Regional Office that granted temporary dormitory residence to these “homeless” educators.

No documents, let alone contracts, have been signed between the committee and these new residents. Nowhere is it specified how many years this temporary housing will last. Furthermore, it’s difficult to comprehend how these so-called “destitute” educators are able to undertake such extensive renovations to their temporary housing. It is a fact however that there are educators within the ranks of the new dorm residents. For example, a squalid apartment on the second floor has been allocated to one of the Nersisyan Institute’s teachers. A few other rooms have also been granted to the Principal of Public School #2 in Etchmiadzin.

There are other sectors also represented by some of the new “destitute” residents. A section on the first floor has been partitioned amongst top-level officials from law enforcement. A female employee of the “Paros” organization has also received a room there.

The first run-in between the dorm’s old and new residents has already taken place. Valya Ghukasyan recounted that his new upstairs neighbor, who is making structural changes to his apartment, saw fit to move the sewage drainpipe so that it now runs through his place. Mrs. Valya declared, “Should I let them go ahead and run their waste pipe right through my room? They do whatever they please.” Regional Governor Ashot Gharamanyan countered that, “Whatever is being done is being done for the benefit of the residents. All are benefiting on an equal basis.”