Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

Yesterday saw the first ever Critical Mass and Right to Walk events staged in central Yerevan for pedestrians and cyclists. The event was staged to promote alternative means of transportation in a city where environmental destruction on an unprecedented scale has combined with heavy congestion in the center to make living in Yerevan hazardous.

Add to that the lack of the rule of law manifesting itself as anarchic driving to say the least, as well as corruption among the traffic police, and even crossing the road can be considered dangerous. Anyway, apart from posting these photos I don’t really have to write much more about the event as one of its organizers, Akhtamar at Armyouth, has done so already.

The purpose of the event was essentially to support alternative modes of transportation in Yerevan. Sadly, the city is becoming much dirtier and people are becoming sicker with various different respiratory diseases. […] When you are living in Yerevan, you realize how dirty the air is. For some reason it becomes even more shocking when you see it in statistics and numbers.

The increasing number of cars in Yerevan is one of the factors which has caused for such pollution. Let’s say you want to actually use a bicycle, a more eco-friendly way to travel to work or school, your lungs would probably collapse as you try to peddle uphill on Baghramian Avenue simply with the amount of car emission hitting your face as you gasp to get somewhere. Who needs that? So for that, many people choose not to use a bicycle. That and most bicyclists say it is virtually impossible for them to get around because cars don’t want to give them the right of way and even purposely try to block them from their paths! Also, there is no designated lane for bicycles on the streets.

So Critical Mass movement was organized in Yerevan to somehow respond to this all…

Unfortunately, as Akhtamar herself acknowledges, turnout for the event was low. Even those environmentalists and cyclists that I do know weren’t there for it, but perhaps they didn’t know. On the other hand, there’s a certain mentality prevalent among almost everyone here to justify why they don’t participate even if the problem is one that affects them. And it does. It affects every pedestrian in Yerevan.

Yet here’s another problem- now, as we pedestrians are trying to cross the streets on the designated pedestrian crosswalks when the green light is lit for the pedestrians to walk – we can’t even cross the street! So some of us tend to jaywalk every once in a while ( I myself am guilty!) but the fact of the matter is, you are going to want to cross the street WHENEVER you have the opportunity to because if you don’t, you will either wait 4 hours or get hit by a car.

Then on top of that, if the Stoplight is red, there are certain expensive cars with specific “Golden numbers” that get the right of way ALWAYS. They don’t stop for pedestrians, drive 100 times faster than they should on these crowded streets and don’t get pulled over by the police because they belong to a certain clan or group of other people like them who have these “golden numbers” (in other words, some friends, family of oligarchs, presidents, ministers…you get the picture!).

As an example, one friend from the US-Armenian Diaspora turned up to the event but decided against joining in because there were too few people involved. As I’ve heard him complain about people never doing anything to change the situation here, perhaps he can now understand why. It’s the same type of logic — and it’s nothing short of self-defeating.

Of course there won’t be enough people if everyone thinks like that. However, a more worrying concern is that few local youth were involved.

I was rather disappointed with the turnout of young Armenian people to this event. More specifically, this idea came from people who were complaining about the traffic and how they cannot cross the streets – and these were the very people that did not turn out to this event! Most of those who took part were people who were volunteers from another country or diasporan Armenians (not ALL of course, there was some representation of young Armenians) On the other hand, there were a few people that joined our cause along the way. And interestingly enough, there was this one group of boys around the age of 10-12 years old who were talking to each other. I couldn’t help but laugh at what they were saying as they explained, “so how come these Diasporans are coming and defending our rights for us? We should defend our rights ourselves!”

Anyway, the act was supported by everybody “in spirit” but a lot of people were sick or had a birthday party or some other event to attend to. So for these reasons, turnout on the pedestrian front was rather weak. However, when it comes to Armenians complaining – they are very willing to do it! Frankly, I have thought about writing this before, but it’s rather sad because so many young Armenians do not feel like they belong to this society. But I will leave that thought for another post. I only hope that sooner rather than later at least the young people will begin to start acting on what they have complaints about and not just sitting and complaining. Especially since the parliamentary elections are coming up in 2007 and presidential elections in 2008…

Unfortunately this is all too true, and yes, this really needs to change soon. As similar events will be staged on the 22nd of each month, hopefully turnout will be higher as word spreads. Anyway, the full post is available here.

Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006