The governor of the Gegharkunik region Gnel Sanosyan, mayor of Sevan Sargis Muradyan, and head of the Sevan National Park SNCO Vahe Gulanyan swam at Sevan’s Flamingo beach as part of a flashmob in response to protests by Sevan business owners.
The governor said to reporters, “The announcement made by the Ministry of Health said that some sections of the lake have problems. So, if you were to look at the announcement carefully, it’s not referring to the entire lake, but to some sections of it. And thankfully, there has been a decrease in the amount of algae in some sections where it had been detected last week. Now, we can call it a flashmob if you’d like, but the purpose is to encourage people to come, to spend time on public and private beaches, and to see that there is no danger in swimming in this portion of the lake. We can see this for ourselves. The appropriate service from the Ministry of Health can give a more expert opinion, and they frequently carry out tests. We will have data once again over the next few days to see if there were any changes. I can say that, in comparison with the last two, there are positive changes.”
When asked about why people are saying that the lake is polluted if it is clean, and about how protestors are discouraging tourists from going to Sevan, the governor said, “Let’s understand that the entire lake isn’t clean, but it’s not entirely dirty either. The reality is that you can see there is no green water in this section as you might have seen on social media. Yes, there are problems in some parts of the lake, but thankfully the problems have decreased. So, I want to tell residents the following: since social media and people’s exaggerations have left the impression that it is dangerous to swim in Sevan, instead of closing the streets, we have to do the opposite. We have to show people that the situation is normal, there are no problems, people are swimming here and none of them faced health issues from doing so. The growth of algae has increased dramatically since the 1960’s due to climate change and other circumstances. The long-term solution to this problem is to raise the water level, but also to clean the beaches.”
Ashot Hakobyan
