EcoLur
“Dilijan” international school construction project funded by Ruben Vardanyan, famous Russian businessperson of Armenian origin, is still in shadow. The public hearings on the project held on 12 August in Dilijan can hardly be names public, as the main stakeholders were not invited. Dilijan Municipality having assumed arranging the event didn’t notify local NGOs, the Aarhus center in Dilijan, and even “Dilijan” National Park from which International School leases 67 ha of forest territory.
In reply to EcoLur’s question, National Park Director Ashot Davtyan confirmed he didn’t take part in any public discussions, as he didn’t receive any invitation. “But we earlier had negotiations with the project representatives, and I can assure you that forests in the national park will stay untouched. It’s impossible to carry out civil works in our territory. The slopes here are very steep. Here you can only lay tourist routes,” he said. We don’t know whether it’s true or not, as the heavy machinery has already been operating on the construction square directly beneath forests, the territory has been leveled and cleaned. The project must be accomplished by 2014. As Davtyan explained, the national park has nothing to do with the construction square, as the civil works are carried out in the administrative territory of Dilijan Town.
It should be mentioned that International School project in Dilijan has been discussed in the social networks many times, while project initiators have published an open letter in the press where they expressed their view that they respect the opinion of the civic society and are willing to take them into consideration. In this case respect was shown only to Dilijan Town administration but not to the civic society who didn’t get any opportunity to express their opinion and to make suggestions.
September 13, 2011 at 13:52