The Civilitas Foundation has conducted a telephone survey to find out which problems concerned residents of Yerevan. Perhaps outstanding sociologists might object to that survey, but I consider it as an attempt made by our colleagues to take note of the issues concerning residents of our capital once again before the city council election. The first question is a general one – which is the primary problem of Yerevan? 27 percent mentioned garbage management and the city’s cleanness, but 20 percent and 6 percent consider unemployment and poverty, the socio-economic condition, respectively to be such problems.
It is understandable that these problems are not “Yerevan’s color”; on the contrary, those problems are more conspicuous outside the city. However, it seems to me that the very social discontent is the foundation, on which all the other discontents are built both in Yerevan and in all of Armenia. However, it is not realistic to expect that the Yerevan city council or the mayor can ease the discontent. Healthcare in Yerevan is one of such fields; in this regard, the overwhelming majority of the respondents, 42 percent, think that prices of medical services are a primary problem. Although policlinics are considered to be the institutions of the city hall, I don’t think that prices of treatment, corruption among doctors, lines, and brawls in those same policlinics can be solved at the level of Yerevan.
Instead, the problem of public transportation, which is considered to be primary by 7 percent of the respondents, is completely within the powers of the city hall, and one doesn’t need any magic wand here. It is just that the mayor, MPs, and other influential people should give up on their routes of share taxis, and in that case, normal public transport – in this case buses – will ease the traffic in the streets of Yerevan. And buses will not work in the same way as share taxis do now; they will not “group” in three lines at a bus stop and will not engage in furious competitions with each other. Buses will arrive according to the schedule pasted at the bus stop. It is no accident that while answering the question about transport, 10 percent of the respondents mentioned lack of schedule as the primary problem. Let us admit that this issue was not solved in Yerevan in Communist times either, but who says that we cannot organize urban transportation, in particular, in line with European standards? Our “route-owning” powers that be just have to be a little less avaricious and greedy.
I cannot talk about this survey in more detail, but these few examples show which problems can be solved at the city level and which ones at the national level. The following question was also asked during the survey: “Who should be primarily responsible for the solution of these problems?” 34 percent mentioned the mayor, 20 percent the President of the Republic of Armenia. I don’t agree. I think it is the other way around.
Read also
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
