The Diary Of A Man From Yerevan

Ashot Bleyan's Diary

As you know, I was born in Yerevan and permanently live in Yerevan. I like Tbilisi very much. If we have built this city together with Georgians (It’s a fact that Armenians took part in constructing Tbilisi), have lived together for a long time, have had our economic and cultural presence, why not live together now, when we are free, and living together can take place in the form of our individual, social and state free choice. For the last 4-5 years the educational project ՛՛Armenian-Georgian Public Educational Bridges՛՛has given a chance to hundreds of Sebastatsies, learners of middle and high schools of the Educomplex, some of their parents and teachers to pay their first visit to Tbilisi, or to regularly visit this really interesting, attractive and historical city as participants of an educational programme. We are implementing educational exchange programmes with our Georgian partners, trying to solve problems together recording all these activities as our joint life. As you know, bridges ensure bilateral economy: tens and tens of our Georgian partners, not only Armenians living in Georgia, but mostly Georgians discovered Yerevan for themselves and loved our city. A group of learners and teachers from Tbilisi School 24 had a relevant participation in our summer reviews in June, and on July 6-13 a big group of young ecologists from Tbilisi will take part in our eco camp Zikatar  in the region of Tavush near the village Koghb. I feel well at the fact that Georgian is a preferred foreign language for 30-40 learners of our Educomplex alongside with English, Russian, French, German, Spanish. Georgian page of www.mskh.am  is a live everyday language. I, and now Davit Sebastatsi, too, have got friends in Tbilisi. If nothing interferes with our plans, my family, of course with Davit and Shushan, will go to Tbilisi soon to visit my partner Georgi Momtselidze’s lovely family.               

Why did I remember Tbilisi today, and why did my diary begin with this city this morning? A short time ago I was watching the complaints of the inhabitants living at Teryan 23, 27 and Lalayan 37 on the media. Our old fellow citizens do not want to leave the houses, which legally belong to them. They are intact because they are the inhabitants' own properties. Now these dwellers are being forcibly evicted, therefore, they have come out to fight for their rights. Are our old fellow citizens of Yerevan being evacuated from the city center once and forever? What is Yerevan if it is not the citizen living in it with the yard and neighborhood blocks created by fellow citizens, with 50-100-year-old buildings and typical to our city environment? Is it a dormitory or a hostel with its deserted and ugly, newly built constructions? Listen to this group of our old fellow citizens who, with their lives, presence and speeches, were supposed to maintain tolerance and altruism typical to big cities. What is Koryun Piloyan, having worked as a designer for 52 years, saying on behalf of his neighbors and in their presence? “What a religious household hatred is being established in the city!” So will this forcible eviction, the alarming sound of which gave a start to the construction of Northern Avenue, continue until there is one erect building of old Yerevan with the last old dweller in it?  

When in Tbilisi, most of all I like to wander along Shota Rustaveli, Sololaki Leselidze streets to St George Church and then to Sayat Nova Square. Any town is, first of all, dear to us because we can walk, wander and unexpectedly come across inner yards delighting and charming me, like the ones we had in Yerevan in the 1970s, tiled, narrow and long intended for only one passer-by and one car at a time with pretty houses on both sides and trees having the value of a monument.   And this Tbilisi has been created by its citizens. Today it is being refreshed and restored first of all by its citizen and for its citizen. They do not pull down Tbilisi in order to rebuild it as they smash it under the caterpillar wheels in Yerevan. They are busy with restoration in Tbilisi. It is done first of all by the common citizens of Tbilisi with the help of long-term loans or with various investment programmes. Everything is done for the city and its citizens.               

Definition in the director's blog

In modern Armenian constitutional language or in international law it is called an unrestricted movement of people, goods and services.

Primitive solutions are the most terrible. Our oligarchs, who are also engaged in construction, have run over the common citizens of Yerevan in this primitive way: they pick up wholly from them without getting into trouble of caring about proprietors and protecting proprietary rights, and they construct according to their taste, imagination and business needs: to take as much as possible in the shortest period of time.

Every year in Tbilisi I can see carefully temporarily veiled streets for restoration works. When we return to Tbilisi two-three years later, we find the same streets already unveiled. You can see the same pretty houses with their honorable citizens, tiled (not asphalted) pavements and very well taken care of trees. The houses are simply restored, freshly painted with new communications and well thought of solutions. This constant restoration work requires that the former constructing community of professionals like masons and old style designers always be wanted. 

On the other hand, constructors of new Yerevan killed the last mason and old style designer and the native habitant of Yerevan with their mania of forcibly pulling down everything what is old and building cool, modern, constructions lack of any traditions. Shouldn't there be left a single inner yard and a tiled road? Shoudn’t there be left a single native citizen living in his grandfather’s, father’s house in the capital city with the population more than one million? Where do so much hostility, evil, hatred come from? As one of the last native citizens of of Yerevan said: ՛՛Everyday household hatred towards our birthplace and us.'' 

Grieving over the birthplace Yerevan in the director's blog

I no longer go out for a walk in Yerevan. This is another tragedy. Of course, I accompany Davit in Yerevan but this is not wandering about my favourite Yerevan. I was born in Yerevan and have always lived here. I can count the days when I was away. I was still in Yerevan when I was imprisoned for 2 and half years. Now it seems to me I live in a dormitory like city, without wandering in it, without truly loving it. I can only live in the Educomplex: I do not work there, I live there. Apart from my working life I live at Chaikovski 30, apt 13. I am sorry, that's all.

A political dream in the director's blog

They should have done two things of utmost importance to develop the normal relationships between the two neighboring peoples of Armenia and Georgia, or in other words, they should have removed two significant obstacles: If only the Armenian Georgian borderline customs didn't exist, and the Yerevan-Tbilisi railway were modernized, and an ordinary citizen of Yerevan could take this new train in Yerevan alone or with a group or with his family members and in less than 3 hours covered 270-300 km distance and appeared in Tbilisi. He could arrange his business there and return to Yerevan a few days later. I wish it were affordable for each of us.