Reclaiming Yerevan’s Green Spaces

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Yerevan was once a much greener city. Since independence, many of its parks and other green spaces have shrunk considerably, lost to tree-cutting, inadequate irrigation, neglect, privatization and construction. What remains is not simply a matter of aesthetics or recreation. Green spaces help filter air pollution, reduce dust, provide shade and mitigate rising urban temperatures.

In recent years, steps have been taken toward restoring them. A number of green spaces that had previously been leased out have been returned to municipal control. The process often moves forward slowly, and the results are not always satisfactory. Still, these efforts suggest that the city is beginning to treat this issue as a priority.

This is the first in a series examining Yerevan’s efforts to reclaim and restore the green spaces it has lost.

The Opera House and Liberty Square

The first major effort to reclaim public space focused on the cafes around the Opera House and Liberty Square, which had been built starting in the 2000s. In March 2019, on the initiative of former Yerevan mayor Hayk Marutyan, three of the five cafes in the first zone (Atlantic, Jazzve, and Rich) were fully or partially dismantled. Their sites were landscaped with newly planted shrubs and trees. Another two cafes, Sholokadnitsa and Montale, continued operating.

Marutyan had promised that all the cafes around the Opera would eventually be removed and the area’s original appearance restored. City Hall subsequently went to court seeking early termination of the leaseholders’ contracts, but the court rejected the request. The companies operating the cafes hold lease agreements running until 2026 and 2027.

Here, as in a number of other cases, the cafes were not built by just anyone. According to press reports, Jazzve was owned by Mikayel Minasyan, son-in-law of third president Serzh Sargsyan; Rich was linked to businessman and former parliamentarian Samvel Aleksanyan; and Meghedi, in the second zone, to Mikayel Manukyan, a former ARF (Dashnaktsutyun) parliament member and former director of Hayantar, the state forestry agency. 

Six years after those demolitions, in February 2025, City Hall tore down the Saint-Tropez cafe on Sayat-Nova Street, next to the Opera, which, judging by its social media pages, had not been operating for several years. According to current Mayor Tigran Avinyan, the cafe’s leaseholder did not renew the contract and handed over roughly 1,000 square meters to the city. Avinyan described this as a continuation of work begun years earlier.

Ring (Circular) Park

The largest green space in central Yerevan is Ring Park. Under a plan approved in 1962, the park was to cover 26 hectares, with 14 hectares landscaped and the remainder devoted to walkways, plazas, water features and a small area (0.77 hectares) for structures. It stretches from the area facing what is now Rossia Mall, formerly the Rossia cinema, to the Aragast (Poplavok) cafe.

Over the decades, however, much of the park has been built over or leased for commercial use. According to Hetq, by 2020 more than half of the park’s overall 31-hectare area was occupied by roughly 100 businesses operating under lease agreements. A series of investigations by Hetq in 2019-202 documented the owners of structures in the park’s first four sections (1, 2, 3, 4). At the time these included former businessman-oligarch Republican Party (HHK) MPs Garegin Nushikyan, Samvel Alexanyan, and Manvel Grigoryan; Arkadi Hambardzumyan, once an MP from the Rule of Law party; former mayor and former interior minister Suren Abrahamyan; senior officials and others. A CivilNet investigation found that half of the sixth section had also been leased out. The section, which runs from Vardanants Street to Tigran Mets Avenue, has included businesses linked to Arkadi Hambardzumyan’s company Derzhava-S, Khachatur Sukiasyan’s family (Queen Burger), a company linked to Samvel Aleksanyan, and various officials.

Starting in 2019, City Hall periodically reported dismantling illegal structures in the park, mainly in the fifth and sixth sections.[1] The sixth section, from the Vardan Mamikonyan statue to Tigran Mets Avenue, was refurbished in 2020–2021 and fitted with an irrigation network. Yerevan’s first skate park and a dog park were also established there. In September 2025, through joint efforts by the Keron Development Foundation and the Kentron district administration, the city’s largest public playground, covering about 2,000 square meters, opened in the sixth section, next to St. Grigor Lusavorich Church.

In January 2024, City Hall announced the reconstruction of the park’s fourth section, from Sayat-Nova Street to Nalbandyan Street: the tennis courts facing the main building of Yerevan State University, along with all the cafes and other structures, are to be demolished. Major structures there include the Multi Wellness Sports Complex belonging to Gagik Tsarukyan, the Tashir Pizza restaurant built adjoining the Chess House, the Labeerint pub, and Jose restaurant.

Under a January 2026 government decision, Flora-1 LLC will rebuild and modernize part of the third section on a plot of about 4,360 square meters. Of this, 703 square meters will be granted to the company for 35 years to build a cafe or restaurant. The land was granted without a competitive tender, based on a roughly 1 billion-AMD investment proposal submitted to the municipality. As part of the arrangement, another company owned by the same person, Orient Cafe LLC, must demolish its buildings and terminate its existing lease and property rights on the site. In effect, the arrangement replaces one company’s existing lease with another company’s 35-year construction right in exchange for investment in the park.

New Arabkir Park

In 2019, New Arabkir Park, covering 2.8 hectares and popularly known as the Molokan Park, was returned to the municipality. In 2009, it had been leased for 50 years by the then-head of the Arabkir district, Albert Yeritsyan, to a company founded by his own son, for an annual rent of 3 million AMD ($8,200). Following negotiations, the contract was terminated early. After the park was returned to the municipality, cleanup and restoration work funded from the city budget began, finishing in August 2022.

David Anhaght Park (Zeytun)

In the Zeytun district, the roughly 1.5-hectare David Anhaght Park had been leased since 2006, for an annual rent of 750,000 AMD, to Ashot Tonoyan, a former parliament member from the Prosperous Armenia party. Since 2012, it has been leased by Artur Aghabekyan, who for many years held senior positions both in Armenia (deputy defense minister, MP from the ARF) and in Artsakh (interior minister, deputy prime minister). This park, too, had been left neglected and abandoned for years.

In July 2023, renovation began there, after which the park would come under municipal control. In summer 2024, construction was halted because the park had been put up as collateral. The lease agreement was ultimately terminated in October 2024. Although city authorities had said its restoration was being funded through charitable contributions, the city budget allocated 150 million AMD for the work this March. Tree planting took place in April 2026, and a video posted in June shows the park largely rebuilt and landscaped already. According to Armen Begoyan, director of City Hall’s Landscaping and Environmental Protection Service, about 80% of the work has been completed.

Mergelyan Park

In Arabkir district, at the start of Komitas Avenue, facing the Yerevan Research Institute of Mathematical Machines (the Mergelyan Institute), is a park covering around 5,000 square meters. In 2020, Hetq reported that the park had almost no benches and little room to walk, as businesses operating under lease agreements had largely taken over the space. It was crowded with two cafes, children’s rides, an arcade, a pharmacy, and bakery and produce shops.

In November 2022, City Hall announced that demolition of unauthorized structures there had begun. Contracts with two of the three businesses had already expired back in 2020, while negotiations were underway with the third to terminate its contract early.

All the structures were torn down in spring 2023, and City Hall released a renovation plan months later. The announcement described the zone as having been burdened for decades with various kiosks, cafes, and non-functioning rides, and said it would now get a fresh look.

Major renovation work began in early 2024, and the park reopened in October that year. The iconic sculpture Dance of the Highlanders, previously placed near the Dvin Hotel, was relocated there. Shortly after reopening, some users online pointed out a number of shortcomings.

Tork Angegh Park (Nor Nork)

In spring 2023, Avinyan announced that preparatory work had begun to turn the area around the Tork Angegh statue in Nor Nork into a park. City authorities promise to make it an “exceptional recreation area.” According to district head Armen Mheryan, this park, nearly a kilometer long, is the largest to have been established since independence. Covering 4.2 hectares, the area has already been cleared of unauthorized structures, an irrigation network has been placed, and trees planted. The park will include an amphitheater, a football field, and other facilities. The construction deadline is set for the end of 2026. Mayor Avinyan called it one of the most successful projects, noting that fragmented plots there are being merged into a single large park.

Court Cases

Tokhmakh

Vardavar Park in Erebuni, covering the area around the pond popularly known by the name Tokhmakh, was partially privatized by the family of Mher Sedrakyan, a former Republican Party (HHK) parliament member and former head of the Erebuni district, who is better known by the nickname Tokhmakhi Mher. On the pond’s shore, within the park grounds, the Sedrakyans had built a private house and a restaurant.

In 2020, the Investigative Committee announced that its inquiry had led to charges against Sedrakyan for abuse of official authority. As head of the Erebuni district, Sedrakyan had effectively allowed his son and brother to carry out unauthorized construction totaling 2,782 square meters in the municipally-owned park, and in 2004 had transferred a total of 12,035 square meters of park land to them. The Prosecutor’s Office filed a claim with the Anti-Corruption Court seeking confiscation of this property, along with other assets of illegal origin belonging to the Sedrakyans.

In April 2024, the Anti-Corruption Committee announced that a criminal investigation had found that in 2009 the Erebuni district council had leased the land occupied by the park and the pond for 99 years, at an annual rent of 620,000 AMD (approximately $1,700), to a company belonging to a close associate of Sedrakyan’s son, also granting it construction rights. This was justified by the park’s supposed need for major investment, even though a year earlier, in 2008, an agreement had already been signed with the French city of Lyon for the park’s improvement. Moreover, no open tender required by law was held, and the lease was granted at a price described as “obviously low.” As a result, criminal proceedings were brought against Sedrakyan under abuse of official authority. According to press reports, a technical examination had been ordered, effectively suspending the case, but in July 2026 the court reopened it.

Yans

In Yerevan’s small center, near the Polytechnic University and the National Library, part of Student Park was privatized by Vachagan Ghazaryan, head of former president Serzh Sargsyan’s security detail. His restaurant, Yans, now operates there, on Teryan Street.

In April 2023, the Prosecutor’s Office announced that a 626-square-meter plot had been transferred, by a 2015 decision of the Yerevan mayor, through a direct sale for 24.4 million AMD (approximately $67,000), to a company owned by Ghazaryan’s wife, Ruzanna Beglaryan. The land, however, lies within a landscaped zone for common use and is not subject to transfer. The Prosecutor’s Office filed a crime report on the matter with the Anti-Corruption Committee, which opened a criminal case on exceeding official authority and official forgery.

At the same time, the Prosecutor’s Office filed a claim with the Administrative Court demanding the return of the transferred land to the state. However, the case was closed by a court ruling in June 2024, which found that the Prosecutor’s Office had no standing to bring such a claim.

* * * 

These cases show that restoring Yerevan’s parks is a slow and complicated process. In some places, the city has succeeded in ending leases, removing structures and returning land to public use. In others, legal and property disputes continue, while even completed renovations have not always produced satisfactory results. The city has clearly begun to reverse some of the losses of previous decades, but there is still a long way to go before Yerevan can reclaim the parks and green spaces it has lost.

Footnotes:

[1] Examples: 17.04.2019 (5th section), 20.08.2021 (6th), 27.06.2022 (2nd), 11.11.2022 (6th), 25.11.2022 (3rd), 15.12.2022 (5th and 6th) 20.02.2023 (5th), 27.04.2023 (5th).

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