Anger as Traders Cleared From Yerevan Streets

Wednesday, 24 August, 2011

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Naira Melkumyan

The authorities in the Armenian capital Yerevan have begun demolishing street stalls and kiosks, in what opposition politicians allege is a step designed to protect large supermarkets from competition.

Workers backed up by police units dismantled several stalls in the city’s Central and Arabkir districts last week, without even giving owners a chance to remove goods from display.

Leva Hakobyan said he was ruined after losing the kiosk where he sold souvenirs and cosmetics in Arabkir district.

“I took out a bank loan until 2015 to start a business. I’ve paid all my taxes and kept up with the repayments all this time, but how am I going to pay the bank now?” he asked. “This stall supports two families. I have all the requisite documents and a license. How can they just take our property and destroy it?”

The city authorities say they are not going to extend current stallholder licenses, except for newspaper sellers. They argue that the stalls and kiosks break planning rules and make the capital look ugly.

“If there’s an order to remove stalls on these streets, then that order will be carried out,” city hall spokesperson Shushan Sardaryan said.

The campaign to clear street traders off the streets has been going on since the beginning of the year, under mayor Karen Karapetian. So far over 900 of the nearly 4,000 stalls and kiosks have gone.

The issue has become politicised as opposition parties take up the stallholders’ cause. The city authorities are dominated by the governing Republican Party. 

Opposition politicians say Karapetian’s predecessor as mayor gave stallholders permission to remain until next year, so the current administration cannot simply cancel that arrangement.

“They cannot deem that a document saying stalls in Arabkir district can remain until 2010 is illegal. If the mayor says they were built illegally, then everyone must answer for it, from the former mayor downwards,” Stepa Safaryan of the Heritage party said.

Arevik Ghazaryan, who owns a flower stand on Mashtots Avenue, said she had been assured she would have a guaranteed pitch until 2015 and had made her plans accordingly.

“We are asking them not to take our work away from us, not to create unemployment, and not to bankrupt us,” she said. “Is the aesthetic improvement for which the mayor has decided to destroy these stalls worth depriving people of work and reducing their circumstances?”

Safaryan accused city officials of lulling stallholders into a false sense of security by suggesting their premises would not be removed immediately. They deny this, insisting they kept traders informed of their plans.

The opposition Armenian National Congress, ANC, has accused the government of eliminating competition on behalf of its allies in big business.

A statement from the ANC said that there was a policy to “concentrate trading in the supermarkets and large shops belonging to oligarchs”, and that the authorities were ignoring the social consequences – “the future of thousands of people, an increase in social tensions, and extra impetus for emigration”.

The city authorities have insisted they are not against small businesses. Mayor Karapetian told a government meeting that stalls would only disappear from central streets where they blocked pedestrian traffic or looked unsightly.

“I don’t think the owners of kiosks on central streets are impoverished, so the mayor’s office has no obligations to them,” he said. “There was a deadline… We don’t have to offer them an alternative [site] or compensation.”

The mayor added that in cases where traders needed help, local officials were under instructions to provide financial compensation, job offers, or alternative sites.

At a recent meeting with stallholders, Arabkir district government chief Edgar Musheghyan offered them new sites, but they dismissed this, saying they would have to pay for the relocation out of their own pockets, and the sites on offer would not attract any passing trade.

Armenia’s human rights ombudsman has stepped into the fray, saying the demolitions were unlawful and marred by violations of human rights. Among the concerns raised by the ombudsman’s office were the failure to notify stallholders of demolitions in advance, and the use of force by police drafted in to help.

The ombudsman urged the mayor’s office to remember that Yerevan belonged to everyone, not just to the wealthy.

“Several recent urban renewal initiatives have had a negative effect on disadvantaged sections of the population, and benefited only those with a medium to high standard of living,” the watchdog concluded.

The Heritage party and the stallholders say they are considering what to do next. This may include protests outside the offices of the president and the city mayor. Heritage has also urged the speaker of parliament to recall legislators from their summer break to debate the issue.

Hovsep Khurshudyan, an analyst with the Armenian Centre for National and Strategic Studies, says targeting street traders is manifestly unfair.

“Of course the city should be beautiful and construction standards adhered to,” Khurshudyan said. “But is it really only stalls that affect this? What about big shops on the streets, or cafes in green areas? Nothing gets done about them, and that’s because there are big businessmen behind them. That’s double standards.”

Naira Melkumyan is a freelance journalist in Yerevan.