The Atlantic Cities
April 26 2013
Yerevan Loves Grandiose Graves, But It’s Running Out of Room for Them
by Marianna Grigoryan
A fascination with grandiose graves, built to show respect for the
deceased and bestow honor on the bereaved, could mean that the
Armenian capital of Yerevan, a city of over 1.1 million people, soon
will run out of space to bury its dearly departed.
Graves decorated with huge marble statues and sprawling family
mausoleums abound in all of Yerevan’s 21 cemeteries, which now account
for about 10 percent of the city’s total land area of 227 square
kilometers, experts estimate. That proportion is twice the size of
what the city can maintain, they say.
“What is happening now with Yerevan is a disaster,” says Vladimir
Badalian, a former MP and sponsor of a 2006 law that set stricter
limits for land allotted to graves and family plots. “If you take a
bird’s-eye view of Yerevan, you will see that it is surrounded with
cemeteries from all sides and the loop is gradually tightening.”
“I myself have seen a grave occupying 260 square meters. If things go
on like this, the capital city will become a cemetery one day,”
continues Badalian, who now serves as Armenia’s ambassador to
Turkmenistan.
With Armenia’s death rate steadily increasing over the past decade (it
stood at 8.49 per 1,000 people in 2012; the second highest in the
Caucasus after Georgia), no one expects demand to slacken in the
foreseeable future.
Only four of Yerevan’s cemeteries (Ajapnyak, Shengavit, Spandarian and
Arin-Berd) still have space available, according to the city’s Public
Services Department. But since these cemeteries border on residential
areas, room for expansion does not exist.
Over 46 hectares of land are needed to build a new cemetery, and the
city does not have it, one municipal employee noted. “If nothing
changes, Yerevan will run out of burial spaces in 20 years,” predicts
Razmik Harutyunian, an engineer with the city’s Public Services
Department.
For now, no change is in sight. The 2006 law restricted graves to 2.5
square meters and family plots to no more than 12.5 square meters, but
those limitations have not been enforced.
Instead, bribery appears to be flourishing. Depending on the
cemetery’s location and the size of the desired plot, a grave can cost
the dram-equivalent of a few thousand dollars, or run into the tens of
thousands of dollars, according to families interviewed by
EurasiaNet.org.
In 2008, Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian spoke out on the issue,
mentioning “a well-known chess player” who allegedly paid $2,000 in
bribes to secure a grave for his father. “People are not ashamed of
anything now,” the Azg daily reported Sarkisian as saying.
Ironically, the prime minister himself is blamed for having
contributed to the problem. Many Armenians argue that his decision to
grant non-working days of commemoration for the dead for each of the
Armenian Apostolic Church’s six major feast days has strengthened the
country’s so-called `cult of the dead. ‘On memorial days, Armenians
take flowers and incense for their loved ones and packets of food and
drink for the poor to cemeteries. The visits often expand into lavish,
lengthy restaurant dinners – a custom throughout the Caucasus – to
recollect the lives of the dead. Church services also are held.
One Yerevan resident, Tamara Melkonian, calls the need for showy
displays of respect for the deceased “dangerous,” recollecting a
neighbor who could not pay for his wife’s cancer treatment, but “ran
into huge debts to pay for a big grave and organize `a decent
funeral.'”
Some family plots can cover 100 square meters. (Anahit Hayrapetyan)
Others, though, reject criticism. “How to mourn our relatives comes
from the soul and speaking about the amounts [spent] and the ways [we
do that] is sacrilege,” asserts one 37-year-old male Yerevan
inhabitant.
Some are trying to promote cremation as a way to resolve the cemetery
space issue. Twelve hectares of land were set aside for a crematory
and columbarium in 2006, but construction is not expected to start
until next year. The reasons for the delay are not clear. Some
attribute it to opposition from the Armenian Apostolic Church. The
Church, however, has not yet issued an official opinion.
The Reverend Father Vahram Melikian, spokesperson at the Holy See of
Etchmiadzin, the Church’s headquarters, commented, though, that the
concept of cremation `is unacceptable from an Orthodox Christian
perspective, and is alien to the Christian worldview’ since it does
not correspond with Christianity’s resurrection beliefs.
Sociologist Aharon Adibekian, director of the Sociometer research
center, does not see any connection between religion and Yerevan’s
lack of a crematory. “[I]t is the factor of tradition that matters,
and not religion,” Adibekian asserts.
“Most people in Armenia are materialists and are emotionally bound by
things,” he elaborates. “The body has a certain value and the place
where a family member is buried matters, too.”
In the 1970s, plans also were made for a Yerevan crematory, but
Armenia’s Communist Party never signed off on the structure.
Ambassador Badalian hopes that, ultimately, Armenians will come to
recognize the need to curb the country’s `cult of the dead.’ But, as
yet, no such awareness campaign exists.
Top image: Extravagant graves and tombs often serve as a sign of
respect for those who have passed away and add to the honor of
bereaved families. (Anahit Hayrapetyan)
This post originally appeared on Eurasianet, an Atlantic partner site.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/04/yerevan-loves-grandiose-graves-its-running-out-room-them/5416/