For whom the bell tolls. this time for Sevan

Sevan has been a hot topic this week. First a cycling event was organized by activists during the weekend and today a protest march was held by environmental NGOs and youth. The aim of the demonstration was to voice concern with the issue of possible operation of a processing factory in Sevan basin and as a consequence the allegedly save tailing dump. On the contrary, environment experts claim that once GeoPromining company stops its activities 100 million tons of toxic dump and a cyanide cemetery will remain.

The rumor is that Geopromining's project is with the government and will receive a "green light" for operation. Unfortunately, the trend for the past year is such that such rumors turn out to be reality. In this case, another reality may be the change in the RA Law on Sevan, a law that to my understanding has been drafted by the best local as well as with involvement of international experts. Should the law change and processing factory in Sevan's basin become operational the bell will definitely toll for Sevan. The march started off from the presidential palace...

Continued to the National Academy of Sciences...I assume the crowd and the shouting came as quite a surprise for honorable academics. A good reminder for them poisoning for profit (even if indirectly) may raise a wave of discontent from the public and age and standing doesn't matter.
A stop by the National Assembly...
I wonder if the decision maker (not only Armenia) ever stop to think that their harmful decisions directly affect their children? Probably not, or otherwise they would've been smarter...
The march continued with several more stops, but I had to leave so I don't have a first hand account of how things went.
This picture is from today but I made it with a totally different thing in mind. Can you imagine that you go to a long night's sleep and wake up mutilated with no hands? I think this is exactly how our capital's trees feel this spring.. or for that matter any other spring.