What Issues Were Present at the 'Gold World': The Owner Provides Details

The Armenian Inspection Body for Urban Development, Technical and Fire Safety conducted a fire safety investigation at the 'Gold Market' located on Khorenatsi Street and recorded several violations. As a result, an official report was prepared on February 6, 2023. Based on this, the 'Gold World' shopping center, owned by the 'Vagharsh and Sons' LLC, was temporarily closed.

The closure resulted in thousands of employees being deprived of income. However, the company's founder Vagharsh Abrahamyan stated in an interview with Mediahub that they resumed operations yesterday evening. "They opened yesterday evening, and we are already working. There were issues, there were a few minor things, we fixed them, we wrote a letter asking them to come see that it was done, and they came, saw it, and opened it," said Abrahamyan.

When asked what the issues were, given that the shopping center had recently been renovated, the owner replied, "We had done everything at a very high level, but our issues were related to the contractor. We had ordered fire safety equipment to be brought from abroad because it is not available here. They brought it, they were assembling it, we transferred the funds to them, but they were negligent. They delayed for a few days, did half the work, left some minor things unfinished, and that’s why they closed it, and completion took a bit longer."

Abrahamyan hesitated to confirm whether the inspection body had fined them or not. "No, they didn’t fine us, what kind of fine is there for that? I don’t think they fined us, I don’t know," the interlocutor noted, adding that the shopping center had been closed for about a week, but is now operating normally.