Is Armenia’s custom agency for real or a comedy show?

Hetq Online

2009/06/03

On May 27, 9:30 am, I happily went to Noragavit custom agency in the
outskirt of Yerevan, to pickup my car that I had shipped from Los
Angeles two months prior to repatriating to Armenia. In the back of my
car I had placed my personal items such as my used construction tools,
computer/printer and sports supplies.

Upon arrival, I was told that I would have to wait for all other car
recipients to arrive at the custom agency so that the Georgian
transport trucks could be opened in front of the eyes of all car
recipients. Of course later on, I found out that the only logical
purpose for making us wait to open the transport trucks, was for the
workers to get tips in order to give priority of who’s car comes out
first and tips for recharging the dead batteries of the cars.

After a 4 hour wait, my car was finally pulled out of the truck and
handed to me, however, my personal items from inside my car were
removed and placed in the truck along with the items of another
person. The truck was then locked up and I was told to go to the
custom house in the city of Abovian in order to retrieve my personal
items, despite my angry protest at the ridiculous idea of removing my
items from the car and sending it to another place. Of course their
excuse was that `Noragavit’ is the custom house for cars and `Abovian’
is the custom house for personal items.

After driving to Abovian city’s custom house and waiting for another
hour for the transport truck to arrive, I was handed a piece of paper
by the custom agent that detailed my personal items in the truck. I
was then told to take that piece of paper to the `Araratian’ custom
house near lake Yerevan, in order to apply for permission for my items
to be removed from the truck and placed in a warehouse in Abovian.

However, they also said, I would have to coordinate with the other
person who had items in the truck so that both of us would be in
Abovian at the same time with our stamped permissions, in order for
our belongings to be removed and stored. The items would then stay in
the warehouse until a future date for taxes to be determined and items
handed to the owners.

During this time, I received a call from the shipping company that
said if I was not able to remove my items from the truck on that day,
the shipping company would charge me extra fees for keeping the
Georgian truck in Armenia longer than necessary. After much struggle
to find the phone number of the other person with items in the truck,
I was able to coordinate and go to the `Araratian’ custom house near
lake Yerevan and apply for permission for removal and storing of my
items.

Upon getting the permission letter from near lake Yerevan, I drove
back to Abovian, waited for the other person to arrive with his
permission letter, paid a storing fee of 7000 drams and then watched
my items be removed from the truck and placed in a warehouse. I was
then told to go to the main custom house on Khorenatsi street in
Yerevan to apply for possible tax break as a repatriate sending his
personal car and items. It has now been a week since my items arrived
and they are still stored in Abovian as I await answer from the main
custom house on Khorenatsi regarding taxes.

Above story is only one small example of the unnecessary bureaucratic
torture regular people in Armenia go through daily in order to
retrieve their personal items sent from abroad. Besides the difficult
retrieval process, there are thousands of horror stories of arbitrary
taxation on used products, which often makes Armenia’s custom tax
higher than the product purchase price from abroad.

Such example is common on car parts being sent from junk yards in
America bought for minimal costs, but people in Armenia having to pay
taxes based on the kilo weight of the product which often ends up
being several times more than the purchase price. Armenia desperately
needs to simplify its custom’s systems with humane taxation for
retrieval of personal items that are not meant for resale. Until then,
I hope everyone could hold up a good sense of humor at the comedy they
must go through with the custom’s agency in order to obtain their
personal belongings in the Republic of Armenia.

Dro Tsarukyan