Connie Müller-Gödecke left a comment on a previous post made today and I think she’s done such a good job in highlighting the greed and corruption devastating Yerevan that it’s worth a post in itself. Apart from a handful of others living abroad, if only the large Armenian Diaspora sent a clear message to the government that it’s time to stop the pillaging of Armenia and the capital NOW.

Constantly, the destruction of the traditional city houses and their replacement by soviet prefabricated buildings is claimed, but if you walk through the city today, 15 years after the collapse of the SU, you might find that the demolitions of the last years count in bigger numbers.

I tend to say that the country, the city, fell amidst wolfes. Private enrichment, illegal aquisition of public property, destruction of central parts of the city to give space for faceless and nameless corporate companies to give them the possibility to erect speculation objects like luxury-apartments or office-buildings - that’s what’s happening today.

Corruption becomes more and more obvious, it can’t be legal: multi-stored houses are built into the green harmonic yards of Mashtots Avenue, everybody knows the price for one vote at the communal elections (some flour or 5.000 DRAM), complete forests are cut although that is absolutely forbidden….

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Everybody knows the names and companies of the Oligarchs, everybody knows the car numbers which protect the driver from police controls, the young generation accepts corruption more and more, as there are advantages as well…

Complete city quarters are demolished to give space for new rich houses, people are forced to leave their houses, lawyers who try to defend them are emprisoned with faked accusatins (for sure faked), more and more “elitnie villas” are build on the hill beside the Cascade, and at the corner of Demirkhian-Street and Marshall-Baghramian-Street private villas are built into the public park. The parks, which like a “green horseshoe” surround the city center, meant as a green lung for the city, is ruined.

Connie, perhaps you love Armenia more than those who not only overlook this destruction and theft, but openly condone, justify and rationalize it. Ultimately, these same people benefit from it at the expense of the country, its citizens, and the rule of law. And while they hold it all up as “progress.” it represents the formation of what one regional analyst calls a “mafia state” in Armenia to others.

The Armenian must learn, that you cannot only cry foul and point to others, who destroy armenian churches (like in Turkey), they must accept that they themselves destroy their own cultural heritage as well.

Read more at http://www.avantart.com/armenia/2005/kultur.htm