Photo for June 12, 2006.
Thie is the back of School No. 6 in Vanadzor. The land used to be the area that my class took care of in the mid 80-s. We cleaned it up, and actually planted a few poplar trees some of which are still there.
What's shocking is the state of disrepair. This photo was taken shortly after September 1. Notice the broken glass on the windows. And the weeds and general garbage in the yard. During the Soviets there would have been a Shabatoryak (the more widely known Subotnik) where the kids and staff would have cleaned up the mess.
The classroom on the second floor, at the corner of the building, was where I was during the 1988 December 7 earthquake. It was a regular sunny day and were were in the middle of a physics exam. Fortunately, the building held up well unlike quite a few buildings a couple of miles away in the Khimzavod district. The immediate aftermath was a surreal experience. The jammed streets, shocked people, and the blanket of dust from the collapsed buildings. And then everything went quiet until the details of the total destruction started trickling in.
2 comments:
So why dont they clean up now?
I don't know why they don't clean up. I suspect that it's the result of the general hopelessness of the Armenian population in the areas outside Yerevan combined with poor management skills of an average school principal combined with the 'vochinch' ('I don`t care') mentality combined with lack of resources.
I guess the principal is waiting for an order from his supervisor to take action. And since the higher ups don't really give a damn, the area around the school remains run down. The kids who attend see the conditions and grow up with the same 'vochonch' mentality as well.
Basically, there is no sense of belonging to a community - everybody is out doing what they think is the best for themselves.
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