Twenty-seven-year-old Liana lives in a rundown hostel in Armenia's Gyumri city with her five minor children. The single mother was born in a hostel belonging to former Len Textile factory where she spent most of her life.
Though the hostel was badly damaged in the 1988 earthquake and is partly dilapidated, dozens of impoverished families continue to live in the building located in the heart of the country's second-largest city, in the neighbourhood of the police building and Shirak Governor's Office.
The ramshackle hostel today accommodates about twenty families of different nationalities, representatives of former Soviet republics. The gloomy, decrepit building lacks basic amenities. Almost all the staircases are damaged, and any careless movement can become fatal for the residents. The building does not even have water-supply and sewage system. The occupants use the collapsed part of the building as a toilet, local Shirak Center NGO reports.
