Business Seizure Operation with Active Participation of the City Authorities
The initiative of Yerevan City Hall to declare the 4th section of the Ring Park as being of overriding public interest and replace the tennis courts with cafés resembles an operation to seize a business. Moreover, the Mayor of Yerevan has personally taken an active role in handing over the mentioned area of the park to the main shareholder of EVOCABANK, including permission to build cafés.
The Power of AMD 300 Million and Tigran Avinyan
In May 2023, Mayor Tigran Avinyan announced during a City Council session that the chairman of EVOCABANK’s board had donated AMD 300 million to the municipality for the reconstruction of a sports school, describing it as an exceptional occurrence. Avinyan characterized the bank’s move as a sign of the bank’s love for the city, but subsequent developments showed that this “marriage” was not based on love but on simple calculation. Moreover, the preference for profit over love became apparent just 2–3 months later.
At the beginning of the academic year, in September 2023, a member of the Yerevan City Council, Ernest Avanesov, raised the alarm that municipal sports schools were receiving letters stating that from then on their employees were required to receive their salaries through EVOCABANK cards. Notably, according to the council member, the municipal sports schools received a letter from City Hall containing this requirement.
Then, in January 2024, it became clear that the city authorities intended to take the 4th section of the Ring Park away from its current owner and hand it over to a company owned by Marieta Gevorgyan, the main shareholder of EVOCABANK.
The operation to “seize” the park area was officially announced at a Yerevan City Hall administrative meeting on January 8, 2024.
Shoghik Yeranyan, director of the Yerevan Construction Investment Programs Implementation SNCO, announced that Green Rock Management Group LLC had applied to Yerevan City Hall for the right to reconstruct and develop the 4th section of the Ring Park located between Sayat-Nova and Nalbandyan Streets.
It should be noted that the beneficial owner of this company is Mareta Gevorgyan, who also solely owns 100 percent of EVOCABANK’s shares. What is most interesting is that Green Rock Management Group began pursuing the Ring Park property — effectively setting its sights on property belonging to another company despite having less than one year of operating history, and immediately winning the favor of Yerevan City Hall. According to the State Register of Legal Entities of the Ministry of Justice, Green Rock Management Group was registered on February 21, 2023.
The same administrative meeting dispelled all doubts: Mareta Gevorgyan wanted precisely the 4th section of the Ring Park, where there are properties belonging to third parties and lawful tenants.
At first glance, it might seem that the city authorities should have said: “Dear newly established company, we are happy that you want to invest. There are many undeveloped parks in the capital — start there. The 4th section of the Ring Park has lawful tenants.” But no — instead, the foundation was laid for an operation to take this section of the park away from its lawful tenants.
Manipulation of the Overriding Public Interest by the City Authorities
The section of the Ring Park targeted by the newly established Green Rock Management Group has lease agreements with GAME-SERVICE CJSC. In March 2013, an agreement was signed for the lease of 7,887.96 square meters of land, with the stated purpose of using the area occupied by a tennis sports facility. This agreement remains valid until 2038.
Another agreement was signed in 2002 for a period of 45 years, under which 1,200 square meters were provided for the construction of a children's sports playground.
No cafés were built on these areas in previous years; they were used according to their original contractual purpose. In January 2024, it became clear that this did not satisfy Yerevan’s current mayor, Tigran Avinyan. At the administrative meeting, instead of asking what remarkable activity a company with only a few months of history had carried out during that period, or why it had suddenly decided to submit an investment project specifically for these areas, he complained that there were tennis courts there.
“The tennis courts should not actually be there, and the park areas should be returned to the city — to Yerevan residents,” Avinyan stated, as if the tennis courts, considered one of Yerevan’s longstanding traditions, did not serve the city’s residents.
SNCO Director Shoghik Yeranyan stated that it had become necessary to recognize an overriding public interest in the mentioned area and that a draft government decision was already being prepared to recognize the area as being of overriding public interest and to provide Green Rock Management Group with the land for development without a tender.
The article argues that this constitutes manipulation of the “public interest,” since building cafés in a park cannot constitute a public interest, while the Yerevan mayor’s spokesperson stated that cafés would also be built there after the area was handed over to Green Rock Management Group.
“For the purpose of efficiently using the park and enabling year-round activity under different weather conditions, small enclosed structures will also be created or reconstructed in the park (a food-service point, café, non-capital structures for family recreation and entertainment, a souvenir shop, and an appropriate environment for organizing public events, concerts, and cultural programs),” Hayk Kostanyan wrote on social media on January 9, 2024.
In addition, it has still not been clarified why, after declaring the area to be of overriding public interest, it should be provided to another company without a tender. Perhaps another company with much greater experience could submit a more interesting investment program. Why is the city authorities avoiding a tender and shying away from competition?
There is no answer to this question, although Pastinfo submitted it in writing to Yerevan City Hall. For now, what we have is that Avinyan urged the authorities to accelerate the process and the seemingly unlawful steps to declare the area to be of overriding public interest. The article states that the grounds for considering these steps unlawful will be presented further.
The Shadowy Side of the Deal
When did the project concerning the 4th section of the Ring Park emerge, who was the real initiator, and what connection does Green Rock Management Group have to all of this?
As already mentioned, at Yerevan City Hall’s administrative meeting in January 2024, Shoghik Yeranyan stated that a company called Green Rock Management Group had applied to City Hall for the right to reconstruct and develop the 4th section of the Ring Park, the area extending from Sayat-Nova Street to Nalbandyan Street.
Meanwhile, Green Rock Management told Azatutyun that it was not the company that had approached City Hall, but rather that the city authorities had approached them.
“City Hall approached us with a proposal to improve the 4th section of the Ring Park. We applied eight months ago. The initiative came from City Hall,” the company’s marketing director, Anna Salome, told Azatutyun.
In other words, the article argues that Shoghik Yeranyan presented false information at the administrative meeting, which is also supported by Tigran Avinyan’s statement.
The issue is that as early as March 15, 2023, Tigran Avinyan had announced his plans concerning the Ring Park.
“Soon we will present the complete project for the fourth section of the Ring Park, which, I think, will be the most interesting among those presented so far,” Avinyan said at a City Council session.
Green Rock Management Group, meanwhile, had been registered in the state registry on February 21, 2023.
This raises the question of whether Avinyan already knew that such a company had been established specifically for the Ring Park, or whether the project was conceived first and a special company was then created to implement their plans. The article argues that this question should primarily concern the Prosecutor’s Office, as there are elements of patronage.
It is also noteworthy that when discussing EVOCABANK’s AMD 300 million donation, Avinyan did not mention that a company connected to the donor had been approached with a proposal to reconstruct the 4th section of the park.
But that is not all. Anna Salome also contradicted herself: on the one hand, she said that the municipality had approached the company eight months earlier; on the other hand, she stated that the project itself had already been prepared approximately eight months earlier.
Amid a Deal Characterized as Corrupt
Tennis courts in Yerevan have their own traditions and decades-long history, and the city authorities’ initiative to demolish them was not welcomed by Yerevan residents. Avinyan had no answer to how the park was supposedly being returned to the people while one of its longstanding traditions was being destroyed, and he quickly amended his remarks.
At the administrative meeting held on January 15, 2024, the mayor again addressed the Ring Park, partially stepping back and stating that the plan was not to demolish the tennis club and that it should definitely be reconstructed.
Moreover, Avinyan stated that the “reconstructed club” should necessarily be accessible to all athletes and coaches.
But is it currently inaccessible? And if it is, what was the reason? Avinyan has not made answers to these questions public either.
However, the article argues that the fact that the city authorities are choosing not to terminate the lease agreement but instead to take the property through manipulation of the concept of “overriding public interest” indicates that City Hall has no evidence of the current tenant failing to fulfill its contractual obligations.
According to the article, everything else is merely a series of statements intended to conceal what it describes as apparently corrupt arrangements.
Incidentally, Pastinfo also attempted to obtain a response from Yerevan City Hall regarding a number of the questions raised in the article, but no response had been received at the time of publication.
“Hovik Abrahamyan 2” Operation, or How They Are Trying to Seize Seized Property
The area in the Ring Park that is now being targeted for removal, as noted above, has been leased since 2002, while another part has been leased since 2013, to GAME-SERVICE CJSC, whose owner is the son of former head of the State Revenue Committee’s Department for Combating Smuggling, Samvel Sanamyan.
In August 2024, it became known that the Prosecutor General’s Office had examined property belonging to Samvel Sanamyan and his family members and had invited him, his wife, his sons, and daughters-in-law to the Department for Confiscation of Property of Illicit Origin to review the case materials and present their positions.
Then, in December 2024, a lawsuit seeking confiscation of the property was filed in court. Within the framework of that case, an attachment was imposed on property belonging to the Sanamyan family, including the aforementioned land in the Ring Park.
In other words, according to the article, the municipality is urging the government to declare property under attachment to be of overriding public interest, while the law prohibits any transaction involving property under attachment.
Alternatively, the article argues, the Prosecutor’s Office would have to become complicit in the alleged arrangements: first remove the attachment, then declare the property to be of overriding public interest, and hand it over to the shareholder of EVOCABANK.
An entire chain of alleged violations — for what purpose?
Moreover, given that there is already a lawsuit pending, if the Prosecutor’s Office is confident that illegal transactions took place and that GAME-SERVICE acquired its rights to the property as a result, why are the city authorities not waiting for the court dispute to conclude? If the Prosecutor’s Office wins, assuming it does, the land could potentially be managed without declaring it to be of overriding public interest.
But according to the article, Avinyan has decided that the 4th section of the Ring Park must be taken from the lawful tenant immediately and at any cost, allegedly for the benefit of Mareta Gevorgyan’s company. The article also questions what interest the latter has in participating in such alleged unlawful transactions.
Ultimately, these cases could reach international courts. Moreover, the article claims that the city authorities and the Kentron Administrative District have already committed serious violations and handed important leverage to GAME-SERVICE by allegedly encouraging Green Rock Management Group to engage in unlawful activity.
One important indication, according to the article, is the alleged unlawful commercial activity carried out on GAME-SERVICE’s property at Green Rock Management Group’s initiative, without the knowledge or permission of the lawful owner.