The bus has been waiting for the passengers for about 15minutes, and the garbage smell becomes more and more intense. At last, the driver decides that it is time to move. Julietta is sitting behind us – she lives in the 14th street of Sari Tagh. She says her relatives from Vardenis always tease her by saying, “We thought our aunt lived in the city, whereas our village is better than your district.” Julietta adds, “During an election they brought some asphalt to our street. In the morning it was not there, and we never found out who had taken it. Our shoes suffer a lot from the roads, and the only person that gains from this situation is the shoe-maker that has a shop in the center of the street. Also, garbage cars appear before all the elections, and we get happy. However, they disappear after the elections. The candidates promise a lot every time but they never fulfill them.”

Julietta says she has no expectations from the elections and gets off. We move on until the bus stop where the houses ruined from landslides are. There are five wrecking houses and 10 families there.

Apartment 39

This house is in the worst state. It has the 5th category of wrecking. Actually, you can hardly call it a house anymore. It’s, as if, a disastrous earthquake has happened here. The host – Elmira Karapetyan – remembers her two-storey house being destroyed one morning, “I wanted to get up the second floor. Suddenly I heard cracking. I backed away to see where the cracking was coming from. And then it banged. There was an enormous amount of dust, and I was just standing there, watching, shocked. We were lucky that none of us was home at that moment. We could not even save our belongings.”

Before that, her husband – Arsen Karapetyan, an Artsakh war participant and disabled person – had received an apartment from the ministry of Defense but had refused to take it, saying that it should be given to a family of a killed soldier. “At that time, our house was in a normal state. Who could have guessed that within two years it would be ruined?” Elmira sighs. Today the family lives in a construction half a meter far from the ruined house, expecting it to get destroyed at any moment. When you enter that one-storey “apartment”, you immediately smell of humidity. The walls are humid, and even water comes down them. There are deep cracks everywhere – on the ground and the ceiling. The ground has been partially destroyed, as if a very heavy elephant has passed here, leaving its footsteps. A restroom is a luxurious concept for the residents. They used to have two of them, and now, whatever they have, cannot be even called half a restroom.

Apartment 37

Half of the ruins of the 39th house are located in the yard of the 37th house. The 37th one is considered a wrecking house of 5th category. Here, you can see the whole “charm” of the landslide. The residents have built a “water-removing system,” so that the mud does not fall into the house. But it does not help much during heavy rains. 37th apartment is half-ruined. Only the kitchen, rooms and the restroom that are near the landslide have been destroyed. The other part is cracked and humid but still proudly standing. However, 79-years-old Ofik is not proud of her house, “We knock at the doors of the neighbors in order to go to the restroom. But how long can they tolerate it?” Her husband – Sirekan, 83 – had felt something was wrong back in 2000. He had applied to the district and city administration but the issue had not been solved. “I have had almond, plum, and pear trees here. Apricot, fig, nuts,” Sirekan recalls, pointing at the garden where there are only fragments of muddy stones now.

Apartments 33, 35, 41

These ones are a bit lucky – but very little. They have just 4th category of wrecking, although they are just on their way to the next category. The residents of these apartments still have restrooms. However, they are deprived of sleep and rest. There are lots of cracks on the walls, and river is flowing in the basement. They are just a step away from getting ruined.

Grigor Onjyan from the 33rd house often wakes up in the night in horror, thinking that the time has come for his house, too. And Azniv, 75, from the 35th house has other concerns – she has poor hearing and she is afraid she will not notice a stone coming down on her from the top.

Ararat Mghdesyn from the 33rd apartment is more concerned about the illnesses they have obtained because of the humidity, “My mother has malignant tumor. My two little kids suffer from pneumonia.” Women are concerned about their sons and daughters, “Nobody marries our sons since nobody wants to live in a ruined house. They don’t marry our daughters because they think they will have poor health because of humidity.”

The residents of the 18th street have knocked all the doors, trying to solve their housing problems. And all the roads have taken them to the administration of Yerevan.

Frunz Basentsyan, the head of construction department at the city administration, recalls that, when the 39th house got ruined, they examined the situation and the location, coming to the conclusion that the houses had been built in a landslide zone and were not for living.

“All the document-related and research problems were solved by the city administration, and the issue entered the government agenda for discussion. It was decided to provide the 10 families with apartments, which is in the process.”

The residents learnt about the decision of the government 2 months ago. They will receive apartments by 2011 but they are still concerned, “How can we tell the landslide to wait until we are provided with houses. What if something happens before that?”

They hope they will not have to wait for two years and will have new apartments by this December. “If this time the mayor is elected in a fair way, our issue will be solved quickly,” they say.

People living in the 18th street recall how they have been promised new apartments during various elections. However, none of the candidates has fulfilled the promises. They recall it and are skeptical about these elections, too. However, they still hope, “We don’t care who gets elected. The most essential thing for us is getting apartments as soon as possible, so that we don’t have to wait until 2011.”

Ani Stepanyan
Photos by Iveta Kosyan