The on again off again construction at the historic covered market in downtown Yerevan has been under intense public scrutiny since the site was sold to MP Samvel Aleksanyan.
After being grilled by MPs yesterday regarding on-again, off again, construction at Yerevan’s Pak Shouka (Closed Market), RA Minister of urban Construction Samvel Tadevosyan visited the site.
After months of dilly-dallying and passing the buck, the RA Ministry of Culture has called on the Yerevan Municipality to take all necessary steps to halt on-going construction at the city Pak Shouka (Closed Market).
Mkrtich Minasyan, head of Armenia’s Union of Architects, told reporters today that he held out no hope that Yerevan’s landmark “Pak Shouka” could be saved.
Walk past the Pak Shouka in downtown Yerevan and you wouldn’t think it was once a shining example of Soviet Armenian architecture that proudly stood for several decades.
Two men, past the age of 50, prevented us from taking pictures on the site of the Closed Market in Yerevan. They threatened to break our equipment.
A special committee set up by the RA Ministry of Culture and the Yerevan Municipality tasked with investigating recent construction at Yerevan’s Pak Shouka (Covered Market) has found a number of violations.
Aleksanyan told me that he had nothing to do with the recent collapse of the building’s roof.
On his Facebook page Margaryan claims that the Yerevan Municipality hasn’t granted a work permit for the Pak Shouka site. Mayor Margaryan also claims that the roof collapse occurred when the contractor attempted to buttress sections of the building.