Published since 07.2002
Published on May 02, 2008
NEW PITS, OLD PROBLEM: GYUMRI RESIDENTS DREAM OF NO-HOLES TOWN
- Walking along some streets in Gyumri may become an adventure, especially at night or during rainy weather. City streets are marked by ditches, dug for installing or restoring water pipes, fixing the electricity cables or installing phone lines. And, while the progress to building the city goes on, safety for pedestrians or motorists is an afterthought, as in most cases the trenches and holes are left unmarked. Here, hardly a street can be found without at least one utility ditch and while residents are used to unpaved roads, their concern is that the mud and dirt from the digs takes up residence in their homes. “The situation is terrific: our street is dug out all along,” says resident Gayane Muradyan. “They kept it so for a week, then, as if having finished the work, they filled the soil back into the pits and that’s it. As a result our homes fill with mud after 5 minutes of rain. You can’t cross the street without getting into that dirt and mud. Yes, the street was not asphalted before either but now the situation is much worse” Gyumri has lacked any state sponsored water pipeline construction or repair for 20-25 years and the main works were done after the earthquake of 1988. However many believe that the major problem is that repair services in most cases are done without the knowledge of the town municipality, even though they are required to appeal to municipality, get the permission and then, after the works finished are obliged to clean the area. Typically, companies upon completing the work are required to pay 6,000-7000 AMD ($19-22) per square meter of digging to the municipality, to cover cost of repaving. From the beginning of this year more than 300 cases of water canal damage have been registered in Gymuri, Shirak province which means an equal number of repair digs. Even in the new Ani district, damages threaten also the electric network. Both the electric network and the water and sewage companies organize only partial repair works in cases of damages, because they lack the huge means needed for substantial reconstruction. “Even the streets repaired by the Lincy Foundation have been damaged, let alone the streets that have not been repaired since the Soviet times,” complains resident Hovhannes Khachatryan. “The whole utilities network of the town is worn out.” Every spring Gyumri residents are reminded that their city’s infrastructure is worn out. “According to the official figures 20,000 small temporary houses were installed in out town after the earthquake and the people who lived in those 20,000 houses drilled 20,000 holes in the pipes and drew self-made water canals, which destroyed the impermeability of our water pipelines, so that we still reap its bitter fruits,” says assistant general director of the “Shirak Jrmugh-Koyughi” CJSC (Shirak water and sewage company) Stepan Petrosyan. “Part of the damages are the consequence of it, part is the exhaustion of the pipelines,” To avoid having damaged streets because of the endless problems with the utilities network Vardan Ghukasyan, the mayor of Gyumri has recently decided to make the provisions of the old law harsher: “No street will be dug without the municipality permission, without the mayor’s signature and seal. The town is being destroyed all across. It is difficult for us to find funds to repair streets and see several days later the street is dug out. Let them come to the utility services department, get permission first, then dig the streets. It won’t take too long, not more than an hour,” says Ghukasyan. The mayor says the companies can dig the streets if utility network damages occur at night or on weekend days, if only they appeal for permission as soon as it becomes possible. Besides, the services have to pay for every square meter of asphalt they dig and the ruined piece should be repaired within a one week period. “At the moment there are several spots we have dug on the central streets and on highways and but there is no guarantee of whether we will have five or ten damages, because the network is repaired only temporarily,” says Petrosyan. “Neither the head of the province administration, nor the Minister of Urban-Planning, nor the Head of the President Administration took our opinion into account when the question of major reconstruction of these streets was discussed within the Lincy program, although I have personally mentioned the major water pipes passing those streets are heavily exhausted and should first be replaced with new ones so that we are not forced to ruin the town later.”
- Ani Hakobyan
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Today in Armenian history- 1219 Death of Armenian King Levon the Second (Kingdom of Cilicia).
- 1817 General Yermolov, Commander of the Caucasian forces and Governor of the Caucasus, stops in Echmiadsin on his way to a mission in Persia.
- 1869 Death of the Armenologist Victor Langlois. He translated Armenian historical sources into French under the sponsorship of Noobar Pasha.
- 1900 Death of Hovhannes Aivazovsky (seascape artist) in Feodosia (the Ukraine). He was born in 1817.
- 1916 The "France-Armenie" committee is organized in Paris. Members of the Academy and other political figures are members.
- 1917 The First Assembly of Western Armenians opens in Yerevan under the Presidency of General Andranik.
- 1919 The Publication of Constantinople's Extraordinary Military Tribunal's decision about the perpetrators of the deportations of Booyook Dere's (Constantinople's district) Armenian population.
- 1930 Creation of the Kanaker Power Station.
- 1965 Death of Hrachia Kochar (writer and public figure). He was born in 1909.
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