Bathroom, boys’/girls’/men’s/women’s room, can, crapper, head, john, latrine, lavatory, loo, outhouse, potty, powder room, washroom, WC, ardaknotz, bedkaran, cordzaran, lvatzaran, zookaran… With so many words for it, you’d think these places would be ubiquitous, easily available.
It turns out, they’re not. At least not in the Republic of Armenia (RoA), and not where they’re most needed.
This stinky situation came up last night at a program with Edik Baghdasarian, of Hetq— the investigative journalism organization in Armenia.
An expert in tourism, a man who has been in the travel industry for decades, broached this subject. He said he’d raised this issue with the relevant authorities, and his entreaties and proposals had gone unheeded.
Tellingly, Edik cringed as he described dreading “the question” when he had visiting friends with him at touristic sites in Armenia. He noted that neither our greatest churches nor other touristic attractions have conveniently located facilities for when his guests needed to go. He also said they’d addressed this issue in Hetq. Finally, he suggested starting a campaign for toilets in Armenia.
So here it is…the first odoriferous salvo in the great toilet war. Please, start telling the Armenia Fund, church leaders, enemies, friends, government officials, hosts, hotels, organizations, parliamentarians, political parties, relatives, and basically anybody else that will listen “we want toilets.”
For a country that is betting on tourism as one of the drivers of its economic growth, the absence of toilets is inconceivable. It’s high time the Front for Armenia’s Respectable Toilets (FART) was established!
Of course, we all know that every joke has its kernel of seriousness, so despite the humorous way this piece is written in (hopefully you agree), I am very serious that we must act on this issue and bring it to a positive, beneficial, bathroom-building conclusion.
Let’s do this folks. Let’s embarrass the RoA’s leaders into doing the right thing for the country, its tourist industry’s visitors, and all our bowels and bladders.
Garen Yegparian
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You are ABSOLUTELY correct! I took a group of 21 young adults to Armenia in 1972. We stayed two weeks. Heroically, I got them all up at 6 am and slept them off at 10:30 pm. According to the Hayasdantsis that worked with us…”we were the travel ingest young group thus far to visit Armenia. The day of our departure featured a meeting with the Cultural attaché in Yerevan….Mr. Hamazasbian. He asked how we liked Armenia. Everyone gave a resounding “wonderful”. Then he asked if there were any inconveniences. Everyone gave a resounding response:
“Zoukaranner”. And then the young people emphatically, one-by-one remarked at the disgusting, smelly, filthy condition of what they alleged to be “toilets” In those days…the urinal in the OPERA HOUSE….of all places…was a big tub in which everyone openly “peed”. In the Opera House?
Thank you for your article…apparantly NOTHING has changed in Armenia in 40 years!!! Except that as a “democracy” they’ve got 246 Casinos from the Airport to Yerevan…a downtown that looks like Fifth Avenue….and the rest of Armenia is poverty stricken and looks like tobacco road. WOW! God bless you.
What a strange problem! Would have never guessed it was an issue. Interesting…
Your article is very important…
Every thing is costly…Let them charge …
Like you use Harrods facilities in London, UK you pay one English pound…(more than one $ )
This was almost 3 years ago, I haven’t been there for long…may be now they increased their charges…!
I agree totally with Mr.Yepgarian. On my 3 visits to Armenia, that was my most aggravating comment on our visits there. The tourist trade is probably the most important way of getting to help the economy of Armenia. It really is disgraceful to have to attend public functions and visit many places and not have decent facilities. My suggestion at the time was to do something about this situation and am sorry to see not much has changed over the years. I think they should listen to his remarks which I am sure reflect the feelings of the thousands of visiters to Armenia. Thank you.
You are correct that public restrroms are vital to increasing the tourism industry. As a matter of fact if current tourism businesses focused their tour destinations on places that included restrooms a big message would be sent to other businesses that this was a vital necessity for growth of business.
It seems that the place to start would be to build a water sanitation system large enough to accomodate a large increase in sewage processing. Then to make it a requirement for all public buildings under construction as well as for remodeling as it occurs to incorporate restrooms into buildings for public use. Incentives for other businesses to install restrooms would also be helpful.
Another point that should be addressed is garbage. There seems to be a major increasse in the distribution of disposable waste/garbage ending up strewn across the countryside in the most unattractive and harmful ways. Recycling and trash disposal would also help keep the country clean and beautiful. Tourists drink huge quantities of bottled water for example.
I love this country and am returning for my 7th year trying to help provide safe homes. I see the waste that accumulates along the roadsides and down ravines. It needs to be dealt with because greater tourism means higher volumes of trash as well.