Residents of Armenia criticize purchase of expensive New Year Tree for Yerevan

The main New Year Tree for the capital of Armenia will cost 71 million drams, the Mayoralty has reported. This money should have been spent on solving social problems, residents of Armenia believe.

Akop Karapetyan, the press secretary of the Mayoralty, wrote on the Mayoralty's official Facebook page that for the first time since 2005 a new New Year Tree will be installed in Republic Square. It is worth about 71 million drams (about 146,600 US dollars).

The fact has triggered criticism of the new city authorities. Some residents believe that Armenia is not such a rich country to afford such luxury; and instead of the expensive New Year Tree, these funds should have been spent to solve other problems.

"It looks like the case when you have your water supply system exploded, the roof leaking, and you go and buy a New Year Tree," Ani Samsonyan, a member of the Council of Elders of Yerevan from the "Lujs" bloc, wrote on her Facebook page.

Asmik Melikyan, a social networks user, wrote that, as a taxpayer, she is more in favour of repairing roofs, basements and streets, and not of installing a New Year Tree for 10 days.

Armen Dulyan has suggested in his post that instead of buying an expensive New Year Tree, they could quite well install a virtual New Year Tree in the square. "This could mark the fact that, firstly, we get rid of old things, and secondly, we give great importance to high technologies," he wrote.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 4, 2018 at 08:41 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.