Registered: in 2005
Number of Homes Built or Purchased: 45
Number of Renovations: 30
Areas included: Vayots Dzor region, Syunik region (prospective). For the list of communities, click here.
Global Village Teams Hosted: 9

Address in Yeghegnadzor
5 Shahumyan street,
Yeghegnadzor 3601,
Vayots Dzor Region, Republic of Armenia
Telephone:374 281 20990

HOUSING NEED SPECIFICS

Housing poverty situation is dire in the region. In a number of villages of Vayots Dzor region, like Khachik, Bardzruni, Sers, Gomk, etc the majority of residences are old mud and clay houses. With walls coming apart, many of these houses are in the verge of breakdown, and are a hazard to the health and life of their residents. As cement and concrete were not used in the building process of these houses, the constructions are not sturdy and it is very hard to renovate them.

In villages, like Shatin, Chiva, houses were build in stone-slide and land-slide areas, and their residents have to be relocated to safe areas of the community.

Broken asbestos roofs are another major problem in the region. Poverty levels are high and having no access to housing mortgage market, the residents cannot afford to build and renovate houses by themselves.

Information on Vayots Dzor region

Vayots Dzor is one of the most scenic and historically interesting regions of Armenia, centered on the watershed of the Arpa River and its tributaries before they flow SW into Nakhichevan to join the Arax river. Mountainous and sparsely populated, Vayots Dzor (by popular etymology "the Gorge of Woes") is crowded with medieval monasteries, forts, caves, and camping spots. The uplands have potential hiking/horseback/mountain bike tracks. There are trout in the streams, and wild sheep, bear (protected) and smaller game in the mountains. The marz capital is Yeghegnadzor, a 90 minute drive from Yerevan over the main N-S route. There are a series of very nice newly remodeled sanatoria and hotels in Jermuk.

The earliest historically recorded settlement in Vayots Dzor was at Moz, near Malishka, and there are scattered remains of Bronze and early Iron Age graveyards and "cyclopean" forts (built of large, unworked boulders, as if by Cyclopes) elsewhere. The region flourished most mightily in the 13th-14th centuries, when a series of gifted and pious local rulers managed to coexist with the Mongols and other passing empires. In 1604, the region was depopulated when Shah Abbas of Persia, fighting a series of fierce campaigns against the Ottomans in and over Armenia, forcibly relocated much of the Armenian community to Persia, both to strengthen his own domain economically and to leave scorched earth for the Turks. In 1828, with the Russian conquest, thousands of Armenians emigrated from Persia or Eastern Turkey to resettle the region. (From Rediscovering Armenia Guidebook).