After the Opera Cafés, They Will Proceed to Circular Park

The newspaper "Joghovurd" reports: "In the center of Yerevan, near the Opera House, the situation was quite heated yesterday. The Yerevan Municipality has begun dismantling the cafés adjacent to the Opera House, while green space work will be carried out in their place. The municipality had previously announced this process, giving the café owners time to voluntarily leave the area.

However, during this time, only the owner of one café voluntarily complied with the requirement, while the others opposed it by all means yesterday. As a sign of protest, they even played songs from the days of the revolution, including ones sung by Yerevan’s Mayor Hayk Marutyan during his acting days.

Furthermore, yesterday there were arguments between café owners, café staff, and employees of the municipality present in the area. The situation escalated to the involvement of 'red berets'.

Meanwhile, Joghovurd inquired with Aram Martirosyan, a representative of the Yerevan Municipality, whether the possibility of compensating café owners was being discussed. "There is no legal basis for compensating self-built structures. These have been self-constructed buildings, established without the legally defined procedures, therefore, compensation is not implied," he stated.

Moreover, according to Martirosyan, the law allows the municipality to require café owners to cover the costs of the dismantling work by submitting a relevant claim to the court. However, Martirosyan indicated that they currently do not intend to take such action: "I cannot specify details; work is currently underway, future discussions will take place, and a decision will be made."

In the meantime, it should be noted that the Yerevan Municipality plans to implement greening programs in the Circular Park as well, removing constructed but non-operational cafés from there.

The information provided to Joghovurd has been confirmed by the Yerevan Municipality.

Details in today’s edition of the newspaper.