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Wednesday 20 February 2008

Yerevan in 'transport blockade'

Reports from Yerevan indicate that authorities paralised and shut down all main transport means (buses, mini-buses, metro etc) to prevent - as much as they can - people from attending a rally organised by campaign team of Levon Ter-Petrosyan who refused to accept the results of what some call 'election' in Armenia.

Also, at least in one kindergarten, according to my relative - there are unconfirmed reports from others too - they refused to take children today, which many speculate is not because of safety concerns due to possible unrest but rather to prevent more people from attending opposition protests in Yerevan.

4 comments:

artmika said...

Panorama reports that transport is working very bad today, many people gather at bus stops and streets waiting for transport, and people complain, but metro is working now. However, representative of Yerevan municipality stated that "mini-buses work as normal."

One thing is clear from my talks with Yerevan residents that the authorities limited public transport means in and to Yerevan to the minimum.

artmika said...

A1+ confirms that underground (metro) trains do not stop today at Yeritasardakan and Baghramyan stations which are nearby rally area. A1+ also confirms reports made in my post that one of the most common means of transport for Yerevan residents - mini-buses ('marshrutka') "almost disappeared" today.

Anonymous said...

We were sent home from work a little after 2pm and at that time the marshrutkas were working fairly normally, but there were loads and loads of people near Shrjanyin and Metro Yeridasardakan waiting for transport. Also all the buses and marshrutkas that I saw were packed with people.

Anonymous said...

I had no problem in catching metro to go to Ter-Petrossian's rally at 3pm. I also caught it from Republic Square to Komitas at 5pm. At 9.50pm I caught a bus from the Komitas Shuga downtown. Not sure about the situation at other times of the day, but I had no problem with the metro during the height of Ter-Petrossian's rally at least.