Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

The first of Hetq Online’s renewed investigation into the situation of the homeless in Yerevan has been published in Armenian and English. A1 Plus journalist Karine Asatryan wrote the article on two Russian women living in the Komitas Pantheon for Hetq although a film crew from Yerkir Media TV accompanied us when the women were admitted into hospital yesterday with frostbite and burns.

For Ira Kritina and Svetlana Golubkina, the New Year came a few days later on January 3 when their friend Vika visited with food and drinks. She didn’t come for a few hours, but agreed to spend the night with her two Russian friends in the open air underneath a polythene tent at the Komitas Pantheon. The women don’t remember when they fell asleep that night, but they do remember waking up screaming.

“It was nearly 3 am and everything had burned. I managed to run out even though my foot was burnt. Everything we had, including our clothes and covers, were also burnt,” Ira says, four days after the incident. Her left hand and half of her face was also burnt and has started to inflame. “I apply oil on the wound,” she says, adding that none of them know who burned their “home” down. They saw no one.

Aram, one of the tenants living in a neighbouring building who visits them occasionally, thinks that the reason for the fire was an improperly extinguished cigarette. On 6 January — Christmas Day — huddled against one of the walls surrounding Komitas Park, the two women were lying half covered in polythene. The remains of their clothes and scraps of food lie strewn around.

[…]

The two homeless women earn their daily bread by collecting bottles from rubbish bins and selling them. “They never beg,” says 15-year-old Vadim, son of a Russian mother who was a friend of Ira and Svetlana, and an Armenian father. Vadim’s mother died last spring, and his father left for Germany before he was born. He doesn’t sleep outside, but instead lives with his uncle.

Even so, he doesn’t go to school, although he would like to, and like his mother’s friends, collects bottles of works in construction.

[…]

“Last night was terribly cold, and Ira was crying,” says Svetlana, who walked to the ambulance only in socks covered in plastic bags because her shoes were burned during the fire 3 January. The ambulance took them to Republican Scientific Centre for Burns and Laser Therapy, although Dr Knarik Chomaryan was unsure if they would be accepted.

“There are may calls like this every day,” she says.

The homeless Russian women were accepted by the Centre, and were In fact the first homeless patients admitted this year even though the Ambulance Service brought four homeless patients to the Burns Centre during the first week of 2006 alone. According to Hovsep Shamakhyan, Head of the Burns Department, there were 19 cases of frostbite — predominently amongst the homeless — last winter. Six died.

Karine ends the article on a sober note. Although the women will receive treatment, they will likely end up on the street again unless the government gets its act together and finishes the refurbishment of a new hostel for the homeless on the outskirts of Yerevan. So far there is no sign that it will and the Ministry of Social Security Aghvan Vartanian seems reluctant to answer questions as to why even if they come from his own Yerkir Media TV.

The station, which has been exemplary in covering social issues that other TV channels in Armenia ignore, is effectively the broadcasting arm of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaksutiune (ARF-D) of which Vartanian is also a member. Anyway, the full article can be read in this week’s Hetq Online.

Incidently, the photographs at the very top of the page were taken today while accompanying Edik Baghdasarian, Editor-in-Chief of Hetq Online, as he returned to deliver some warm clothes to a few homeless people we discovered near the railway station last year. As usual, we discovered even more homeless people nearby.

As a result, Hetq Online is planning another special issue on homelessness in the capital next week. In the meantime, a few pics taken over the next few days will be posted here on this site as well as on the Hetq Online Photoblog which will be updated towards the end of the week.

Please contact hetq@hetq.am if you would like to help the homeless in Armenia. Although psychological assistance and shelter is needed more than anything, warm clothing will go a long way in helping many survive the winter.

Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online