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More but Cheaper. Paid More than Assigned to Live in Zeytun Dormitory

According to the students from Yerevan state universities living in Zeytun dormitory, they pay more for their habitation than it is legally assigned. The students assure they are obliged to pay; as they know they should have to pay several times more in the case they rent a flat in Yerevan.

“I pay more than 50 000 drams. When I planned to get a room here, I was told I should pay 95 000 drams. Then I was unaware of the rules, so I agreed, as it suited me,” says a student studying at a private university, who didn’t want to mention his name. The interviewer noted that even in the case he knew the money he had paid was more of the assigned sum, he would have paid it. “We can do nothing, as renting a flat with normal accommodations in Yerevan is more expensive luxury.”

The words of the anonymous student are certified by Ani, a graduate of Biology Department of Yerevan State University, and her brother Armen studying still at Erebuni Medical College. Until 2007 while student Ani, leaving Artik (Shirak region) for Yerevan, lived in Zeytun dormitory for six years. Four years she lived sharing the dormitory room with her two girlfriends, then two more years with her brother.

“When my brother came and we had to stay together, our warden told that I can’t stay in one room together with my brother, but he told also that he would help us, only we had to pay 50 000 more drams. He told that only students of state universities have right to live there, whereas my brother studies at a private one. So we had to pay for us both, as well as for the third berth of the room. We thought that in any case the offer was cheaper, that’s why we agreed,” tells Ani.

According to а record of the Ministry of Education and Science on the students’ and postgraduates’ habitation in Zeytun Students’ Dormitory, during 2008-2009 school year the rent rate per person is assigned 50 000 drams annually (last year it was 44 000 drams). It notes also that the dormitory dwellers must by all means be informed about the record and the internal discipline of the dormitory.

The fact that each room is intended for three people is taken into consideration during habitation and rent collection. And in the case of a vacancy in the room the payment is done according to the corresponding calculation. A separate item of the document reports also that sister-brother habitation in the same room is not allowed.

“Here sister-brother habitation in the same room has been forbidden since the soviet times,” says the dormitory warden Artur Matinyan. “In the main if there are such couples, the boy lives with the boys and the girl with the girls.”

According to the document signed by the minister of education, in the case a student wants to live alone in a three-berth room, it must be paid also for the other two berths, that is 150 000 drams annually. But some students insist that 250 000 drams per room is collected of them annually.

However even this size of payment is preferable for them, as one-room flat in Yerevan suburbs with all its accommodations can be rented by 50 000 drams per month on average, minimum 500 000 drams annually. This is rather significant sum for the students’ parents from the provinces, taking into consideration that they should pay also for their children’s education, food, clothes and utilities.

Here too there are sufficient accommodations for the students’ habitation after the repair recently done at Zeytun dormitory; though there is a common kitchen and a toilet on each floor for the dwellers, and there is only one paid bathroom for everybody. Students pay 500 drams to take a 30-minute shower. The dormitory has also central heating during winter months.

It is not so difficult to receive a room in dormitory. Just a reference from the corresponding university is needed and if there is a vacancy, the applicant pays and the room is allotted to him/her.

The room may be applied for both by local and foreign students from state, as well as from private universities. But students studying at private universities, according to Artur Matinyan, warden of Zeytun dormitory, must pay more, than those studying at state universities. Moreover students from private universities will be served after the students from state universities are provided with rooms.

Warden Matinyan says students from private universities should pay more than 50 000 drams annually. He didn’t want to explain why the payments are doubled and trebled also for those studying at state universities.

He said the following instead:
“The dormitory belongs to Zeytun Students Community Fund, which has a Guardians’ Council involving all the rectors of state universities. But private universities are not included in the Council. That is why payments for the students from other universities are different.”

The article was prepared within the framework of the seminar “Raising the Role of the Media in Covering Justice and Law Enforcement System”, organized by “Journalists for the Future” NGO (www.jnews.am).

Source: www.jnews.am