khosq.com

There was a time when I looked out of my city centre apartment window on a clear day or a starry, starry night, the skyline was so dominated by Ararat and his little brother that I had to stop myself from shouting ‘hurrah – hurrah’ as I imagined them coming in two-by-two. But today, I have to crane my neck around a multitude of part constructed high-rise apartment buildings to remind myself that Ararat is still there.

Through the past five years, the Yerevan city authority has been infatuated with its real-estate development programme, which has not only led to the Northern Prospect’s ghostly commercial centre, but to dozens of apartment apparitions, as much as fifteen-floors high. They range from the prestigious in the city centre, to the not so prestigious on the city outskirts, and one of particular note, which is squeezed in behind Tigran Sarkissian’s Central Bank; a fifteen-storey monstrosity which twists like a corkscrew, leans like the tower of Pizza, and which has window and door apertures of various shapes and sizes splattered seemingly indiscriminately over what can only be described as a tangled mess of concrete and metal.

At the last count, in the southern half of the city which my window overlooks, more than thirty construction cranes were pounding away, twisting and twirling and upping and downing, in the rush to meet the five-year real-estate plan deadline in readiness for the tens of thousands of foreign investors who have been waiting patiently to storm the Republic.

During the daytime, the din simply faded into the city’s general hustle and bustle, but throughout the night the rattling and whirling of the cranes put the street dogs and their howling to shame. Lines of red warning lights swept eerily like UFO’s through the Yerevan sky, each fighting for air space, whilst spotlights cast their beams ominously up and down and round and round the soon-to-be prestigious ‘Euro-Remont’ habitats. But today, if any Yerevanite would care to stretch out an ear or two, he or she will be pleasantly surprised by the din, which is now thankfully noticeable by its absence. The hustle and bustle around Yerevan’s skyscraper skyline has all but stagnated to a halt.

In international investment terms, Armenia’s real-estate development programme has been unique in its entirety; Armenia’s custodians only permitted foreign investors to commit their hundreds of millions of dollars to the five-year construction programme, on the understanding that sales of the properties would be allowed only after the entire construction programme had been completed, and that would be done through a pre-determined two-year realisation period. That was in response to the massive demand, which has driven up property values in Armenia nearly to an impressive par with New York, London, or even Moscow.

Through the past year, 'Mortgage Brokers' and 'Estate Agents' have sprung up in Yerevan to give eager punters every chance to become proud owners of these prime properties, and not surprizingly, again monopolised by the same inner-circle cronies who have dominated the construction phase of this new real estate sector. The subprime craze that has recenty cost the U.S. and European economies hundreds of billions of dollars, is about to strike in Armenia, with inevitably the same effect - making the rich very much richer and creating even more devastation amongst the under-privileged.

The five-year construction period has now come to an end and Yerevan's city authorities have announced that their new real-estate wonder is now available for realisation.

But although many of the apartment buildings have been completed and have stood empty for several years, the latest constructions are still in process and need so much work to be done. Moreover, we are told that buyers are clambering in drones and pounding at the doors of the newly established estate agents to be part of the boom. So how can this halt in construction be explained?

Could it be that the tens of thousands of foreign investors have in fact changed their minds; or maybe there never were tens of thousands of foreign investors? Or could it be that the displacement of a group of tens of thousands of refugees has been delayed? Or could it be that the pressure that is being applied by the opposition and by the people the tyrants are meant to serve, and by nearly all of the international community, is now starting to have its effect, and funds are running low? Or maybe a combination of these?

See you ALL on the 1st August!!!

And Bring as many of your friends as you can muster!!!