Last night while in Stepangert, I stopped in to visit with the new residences of the 11 story $1 million housing complex deemed by Hagop Bedrosian as the “projects”.

I wrote about the projects back in June as to my concerns of the hefty price tag of which $650,000 was donated by Louise Simone-Manoogian and the remaining $350,000 was allocated from a government fund.

My visit yesterday took place at 8 pm and thank goodness I had a flashlight in my car or else I could not have entered the dark building which the elevators were turned off as well as all the lights in the stairwells and halls. In fact the single light fixture in each hall was disassembled and even if functional could not sufficiently light the area it was intended to cover.

The only way I can describe this building is as a DISASTER and the biggest rip-off we have seen since the Goris-Stepanagert hwy.

I visited 5 homes and though all the occupants were grateful to Louise Simone-Manoogian for her generosity, they were not happy with the poor quality workmanship that was invested in the projects.

Besides cracking walls, shrinking floorboards that were allowing cold air to enter the houses and no natural gas for heating, my greatest concern was who received a house in this building.

As you may remember, I had visited with the Mayor of Stepanagert back on April 23rd of this year about reports I had of people paying bribes to get on the list of those that would receive a house in the tune of $3,000 (one who was ready to pay $2,000 and was being asked for $3,000, but didn't have the other $1,000 and was looking to me for an alternative).

At my meeting with the mayor, he assured me that everything was on the up and up and for one family who I personally knew, they were sure to get a house since they were first on one of the 10 lists the mayor had. To say the least, they didn’t get a house.

So who got a house? Well 5 of the houses went to the army to give to officers and we were told the remaining 45 houses we were divided to families of martyred persons and injured veterans, thus the family I mentioned above didn’t get a house since they were not on those 2 lists.

The first 4 houses we visited were persons who fell under the martyred and veterans list and as we were leaving the dark building with lots of pictures of water damage from bathrooms, cracked walls, missing tiles and so on, we noticed a hall light on the 3rd floor.

We approached apartment #9 to find the residence of a family that had 5 children ages 15 to 24. Aghasi, the father was a veteran of the Karabagh war. He got the house as being an enlarged family (the same list the family I mentioned above was on in 1st place, meaning the should have received a house before Aghasi).

It seems that this man who received a 3 bedroom 111 square meter flat (the largest size in the building) was not from the martyred or injured veterans list, but just a simple large family.

What made Aghasi different from the family that was at the top of the list was that Aghasi is the president of Karabagh’s cook. Yes, Aghasi works directly for the president and feeds him the food that keeps our president alive (we wont hold that against him).

Though Aghasi answered most of my questions, I could tell that he was a bit uncomfortable telling me who his neighbors are, one from what I understood was the son of a former big-wig and the downstairs neighbor being a high-ranking worker from Artsakh Bank that I personally know, who has not moved in yet since he is remodeling.

I sure would not want to be in this building at night if they had to evacuate it. As you can see in the upper right corner of the picture what that sign reads in Armenian is “Emergency Exit” and is suppose to be lit by the light fixture to it’s right that is missing the bulb, socket and cover.

And why is there no natural gas in the building? Well the government is saying that a building of that height is not allowed to have natural gas because it is dangerous. Someone in the building has a relative who works in Armenia at the earthquake safety department and said that there is no such rule. To heat the building this year people will have to use electricity or if everyone each pays 20,000 dram a month (about $38), they will turn on the central heating system (electricity will be cheaper, but many times more expensive than natural gas).

The reason for the elevators and hall lights not working is that the residence have to pay for the electricity for them and the government is saying that they have to pay 25 dram a kilowatt which is the industrial rate they charge to profit making ventures. This is not a profit making venture, so why should they charge that? The residence still don’t know when they will have elevator service and common area lighting.

I’m now working on getting a copy of the blueprints so I can do a cost review of this project, which my high estimate just from looking at what I saw and understanding building materials and labor costs could not have cost more than $400,000 (the real number is probably more like $250,000, based on someone who worked for the construction company), meaning that someone misappropriated at least $600,000.

Fear not, we will find the missing money and those that are responsible will not only fix the building to make it inhabitable, but be punished, you can be sure of that.