8 Moskovyan Street, a building near the café known as Paplavok in the center of Yerevan, was built in 1957. Five years ago, the recent owner of a one-room apartment, Sargis Aghabekyan, former head of the cadastre department of the municipality of Yerevan, president of ESCO Concern, and an executive at the Hyusisayin (Northern) Avenue Project Implementation Office, built a three-floor complex on the top of the building without informing the members of the condominium, and without their agreement. The deluxe complex is made of steel and concrete. It has cottages, a swimming pool, a sauna, a gym, a winter garden, and more than ten rooms.

According to Alexander Movsisyan, head of the scientific-technical department of the Ministry of Construction, "The seismic stability of buildings built before 1960 was calculated for earthquakes of the magnitude of seven on the Richter scale, and any kind of reconstruction only weakens the foundations, decreasing their ability to withstand shaking. According to our estimations, without a study of the technical conditions of the buildings, they should not be touched at all because cracks and structural changes might have taken place. If there is a positive conclusion after a technical analysis, then only at that time can work on new plans begin."

Such plans are drawn up by certain specially licensed construction design institutions, after which they must be reviewed and approved. In Soviet times, the compliance of proposed designs with Armenian legislation and technical standards was checked by the state non-departmental inspection agency. Since independence, several companies have been created to conduct the approval process. Sergey Avagyan, chief engineer at one of these, the Republic of Armenia State Non-Departmental Design Inspection CJSC, says that builders prefer to deal with private institutions because they offer lower prices and pay less attention to violations. He explained that Government Decision 96 of 2002 contains a package of standards which include construction requirements for everything from the foundation of a building to its thermophysical conditions, and even define precise limits for certain requirements related to health and safety.

So it seems that there is no shortage of legislation. However, the problem of 8 Moskovyan Street's seismic vulnerability has not been solved to this day. Building residents are not yet tired of knocking on doors. And when they received the official response from the Kentron District Municipality- " The digging of the basement of the 1 st entrance of the aforementioned address and the construction of the penthouse located on the roof of the same entrance were done years ago, and in order to dismantle them it is necessary to appeal to judicial bodies, "-the residents decided to go to court.

Mushegh Hovanisyan, deputy head of state inspection at the Ministry of Construction said of the troubling situation at 8 Moskovyan Street, "The residents should write an appeal addressed to the minister of construction. The illegality took place in the past. Therefore, the department of general inspection will go and check the legality of what the builder did and the amount of damage caused to the building and take appropriate measures, up to applying penalties."

In the same building in 2000, Gagik Yeranosyan, the owner of a basement, dug a foundation 60 centimeters into the ground, in order to raise the level of his floor. Eduard Tumanyan, a member of the administration of the 8 Moskovyan condominium said, "The person who did the digging was an architect himself. Who else should we expect to support us in the fight against illegalities? All we could do was direct a series of complaints to the proper agencies, which we have done."

In response to complaints by building residents, some people came from HaySeismShin (the Armenian seismic construction agency) and checked the architect's documents. It turned out among his papers, the seismic study, the agreement of the condominium, and the permission of the district municipality were missing. "They came, they saw, and they left, and we were comforted by the empty promise that Gagik Yeranosyan was going to reinforce the basement right away," residents explained. Five years later, it still hasn't been reinforced.

The residents also said that Aghabekyan's three-floor complex was built on top of 8 Moskovyan with the permission of the former president of the condominium. They opposed it and tried to stop the huge crane from working when children and other people were nearby, but the president claimed that only he could give or refuse permission. He added that the person doing the unlawful building had a powerful backer, and so he was helpless against him.

We should note that our investigations have shown that the people who commit the worst violations of city building codes are all in positions of power-in the judicial system, the police, the National Assembly, the Government, and the Office of the President.