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Armenian PM Vows ‘Much Faster’ Reform In 2012

To that I say less promises and more deliveries, thank you very much!

Shnorhavor Nor Dari jhoghovurt!!

Northern Avenue under construction

One of the best immediate benefits to Armenia joining a number of European bodies after independence was their agreement to join the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).  This article in the Armenian Weekly is about the residents who used to live in the very heart of central Yerevan.  Their homes were taken with eminent domain in order to build the Northern Avenue – a pedestrian bulevard connecting the Opera to Republic Square.

Most of the homes were very dilapidated, due to the fact that for about 75 years they had been slated for demolition in order to build this street.  It took a while, but the residents knew the day would come.  The problem was not so much in the taking of the property, but rather the problem was that the compensation for their land was for most residents unconscionably low.  Instead of their home and land in the center of the city, they couldn’t even buy an apartment in the center with the money they received, they had to move far from their neighbors, shops, friends, etc.  The buyers of the land were developers who were building luxury shops and apartments, selling at prices never before seen in Armenia.  If they had given the previous owners of the land fair market value, or had given them equivalent apartments in the new buildings, I don’t think anyone would have complained. Read more »

I’m embarrassed to say I watched Junior Eurovision song competition this year.  Adult Eurovision (just called plain old Eurovision) is huge, and since Armenia was hosting Junior Eurovision this year and I’d seen posters and some vans with the logo, I thought it would be pretty big.  It was quite disappointing…  only 13 countries competed, so only 12 guest countries.  3 were from Western Europe and the rest from closer to Armenia.  Each song was less remarkable than the others, and the winners, Georgia with some song about candy were clearly pandering to the candy lovers out there.  Selling themselves for votes… and it worked.

I won’t bore you with any more details, except to say the Armenian male host of the show had the strangest accent I could imagine.  I don’t know where it comes from, it’s not an Armenian accent, not a Russian accent…  does anyone know?  Here’s a video report on the competition in case you want to see just how I managed to waste 2 hours of my life.

http://www.armenialiberty.org/media/video/24411231.html

This morning I had a major accomplishment.  I stopped by an office for 5 minutes to ask something I’d been trying for months to find out.  I’d called the office at least a couple of dozen times, but they’d always say to “call back” in a few minutes, in the afternoon, tomorrow, or some other vague time because the technician wasn’t there.  Offices here just don’t take messages.  They tell you to call again later.  It can be quite a pain, since many people aren’t at their desks much of the time.  So this was one of those minor victories that counts for a lot.

It’s December.  The temperature has warmed up to above freezing during the days, after at least a week or two of freezing cold temperatures and snow in late November.  This has been a big relief, and the forecast calls for more of this “warm” weather.

Sitting in a print shop waiting for my print job, I saw a poster on the wall…  ”Winning Receipt” is said on top.

So I took a closer look, and it was a government poster telling people that their official receipts have lotto numbers on them that can win them cash prizes of between 5,000 and 5 million dram (about $13US to over $13,000US).  Not bad.  The poster encourages people to ask for a receipt whenever they buy something, so they’ll have a chance at winning.  This of course would have a big effect on getting much of the economy out of the black market, which is quite big in Armenia.  Lotto tickets used to be sold all over the the sidewalks back before much of the street vending was cracked down upon, so this might be a good way to get people to demand receipts.  A big part of the problem in Armenia however is that the oligarchs pay virtually none of their tax obligations.  Since they’re the government, they aren’t really cracking down on themselves.

And no, even though I was standing in front of that poster for a while, I was still not given a receipt.