Suren Avetisyan Knew: Without the Involvement of International Donors It Would not Be Possible to Fully Reconstruct Spitak

• 07.15.2017, 17:52
•  Armenia

After 1988, December 7 earthquake, Spitak city is living today. Very little reminds about the city under the ruins, despite the fact that the housing issues of earthquake-affected people is not fully solved yet.

The reconstruction of the city started in 1996, when Suren Avetisyan was elected the mayor of Spitak. He was a person whom people believed, who considered his mission to get Spitak out of the ruins and make it a developed and an important city in the country. Suren said: “I will make Spitak the Paris of Armenia.”

The speed and the pace of the work that started raised no doubts towards Suren’s words. During three years, huge construction works were carried out - 30-40% of today's city construction was completed, while a large number of constructions initiated by Suren continued in the following years.

Already in 1999, a factory of bread products, a sewing factory, which was sewing mainly in the order of the RA Defense Ministry and American "Amerex" firm were already operating in Spitak. The factory also had contracts with the Belgian “Lizetex” and the Dutch “Ermeni” organizations. In 1999, a branch of the gold factory was opened in Spitak, where 120 disabled people were employed. The factory cooperated with the US and Israeli factories. Not fully, but still the elevator factory was also operating, the work on repairing the equipments of which had already started.

Of course, it would be impossible to fully reconstruct the city and carry out such enormous work only with the resources of the country. There was a need to attract international donors, establish links with various countries, with international funds.

The first step towards this was the creation of “Spitak” foundation in 1996, to which businessmen from Spitak living abroad contributed. Then the expansion of international links started. The US Thousand Ox sister city, US “Agape” organization, French “Hope for Armenia” organization and a number of other organizations from various countries started supporting the reconstruction works of Spitak.

A close cooperation with Japan was also planned, over which a preliminary agreement was reached in 1998 during Suren’s visit to Japan. In the Japanese Fukui city Suren Avetisyan took part at “World city earthquakes” conference attended by heads of 13 cities. During the visit an agreement was signed for creating a fund of mutual support.

The cooperation with Japan and with many other countries, undoubtedly would expand, if October 26, 1999 did not come…

Today, on July 15, Suren Avetisyan would turn 54.