It has been a few days since the inhabitants of Russian dwelling place Petushok, Gyumri, or the same as the 8th district (Gyumri people call it Vosmoy garadok) receive a note from the Russian 102nd military base responsible persons saying to immediately leave their apartments within 10 days. Yesterday, over the Gala TV, utterly surprised inhabitants were expressing their outrage with regard to this fact, emphasizing that they did not get their flats from the air, but they have family members working in the Russia 102nd military base. According to their information, there are deported to expand the Russian military base for recruitment of new Russian servicemen.
The matter is about non-privatized apartments, in which the Armenian families have spent a lot of money; they had applied for privatization on time but they were rejected. However, the inhabitants facing the danger of becoming homeless were angry about the fact that the Russians treat them as they want on the Armenian ground. Aravot.am asked for the opinion regarding this issue from Vahan Tumasyan, President of “Shirak Center” NGO, which is engaged in the issues of Gyumri homeless. “I still told a year ago that so many people will migrate from Gyumri that just as many people will be left as needed to serve the Russian military base, making it work,”- reminded Vahan Tumasyan in the beginning of the conversation.
To our observation whether the Armenians serving for the Russian military base are actullay moved out of their apartments, the head of the NGO said,- “If I’m not mistaken, in 1991, when the contract was signed, then several new contracts were re-signed, the Armenian side should have taken into account the risks, that some monetary compensation to the border troops was to be expected, as well as who was going to solve the issues of housing and domestic with regard to recruitment of Russian troops, and so on. They must have understood that they would encounter such challenges, and now the Customs Union and so on … Of course, it is sad, that there is a huge army of homeless in Gyumri, and we are adding the number of homeless families in the city year-after-year, this definitely will have a grave consequences: it will increase the migration from the city, will increase the poverty. Of course, the matter over there is a little different, if I’m not mistaken, this district was originally built and envisaged for the Russian military officers, later Armenians were also living there, resale took place. But, before that, Armenian families who were serving in the Russian military base, were living there and they all had Russian citizenship.
The sad part is that we refused many to get apartments because they had Russian citizenship, and the Russian side moves out its citizens from, naturally, service apartments, if the apartments were privatized, nothing could have happened. To note that many of those citizens of Armenia were much more dedicated to Russia than the original Russians who live in the RF. What can you do, it is their own property,”- said Vahan Tumasyan.
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In response to the question whether it is possible that one day Gyumri will be again renamed to Alexandrapol due to the fact of increasing the number of Russians and such mastering pose of the Russians, our interlocutor said, “I want to approach this issue optimistically, and hope that a normal solution will be found, but if you jokingly approach to what said, then why we should call Gyumri with the female name of old tsars, Alexandrapol, instead of renaming with the name of the modern one, Putinograd. Not until the knife reaches the bone, we understand that you can not live with the status of a vassal, if our authorities keep with the Armenian-Russian relations as such, definitely our city will become Putinograd, but I am sure that we will not allow it,” said our interlocutor.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
