The children's park in the Arabkir District of Yerevan has been deprived of its only carousel. Workers sent by the local authorities began dismantling the carousel without warning its proprietor, explaining only that eventually a monument to Peter the Great would be erected there.

The head of the Department of Public Services of the Arabkir Municipality, Arsen Minasyan did not confirm plans to erect the monument and explained that the carousel had been dismantled because it violated the law.

Little Zhanna's mother told us that the carousel was her daughter's only joy in the park, since there is no other amusement for the children of the neighborhood. And Grandpa Vigen was angry: "Only the children's carousel was illegal; all those cafés are perfectly legal. I planted this park for the children." Grandpa Vigen used to work at the machine-tool plant, whose workers often participated in tree planting. He sadly pointed out the trees that he and his friends had planted, saying that they had grown old and withered. Pointing to some saplings he said, "Those aren't trees, they're advertising. They plant them when someone is filming, and they wait for another photo op to water them."

The children's park of Arabkir was small enough already. Today, there are five outdoor cafés and a newly built billiard-hall in the park, and more are being built. The head of the Department of Public Services assures us that the local mayor's office is planning to build a playground. But Arabkir resident Anahit said, "I don't believe that they are ever going to build a playground because they have destroyed the existing one." She recounted that when she was a student at the nearby School #51 she and her friends used to go to the park for a ride on the carousel every day after school.

In the past, this was a real children's park, with carousels, sandboxes, and climbing equipment. Today, this section of the park is fenced in, with no trace of playground equipment and little greenery. "I take my child to the same kindergarten I went to, and later she'll go to the same school. Everything seems to repeat itself, but my childhood park with its luxuriant greenery, with its captivating scent of acacia, with its carousels, doesn't exist".

A sign on the fence surrounding the park heralds that a beautiful two-story shopping complex is to be erected in place of the previously green space. Tigran, who lives in the park neighborhood, says that since it was fenced in the park has not been watered on purpose, to justify cutting down the trees here when the construction work begins.

As Arabkir authorities promise to build a playground here, the cafés and billiard halls multiply in the Arabkir Children's Park. And three-year-old Victoria asks: "Mama, why did the grown-ups take our carousel away? Don't they want children to come to the park?"

Arpi Maghakyan