I just ran across an article published on Hetq Online about a recent repatriate named Dro Tsarukyan going through hell with the Armenian customs agency to retrieve some goods that he had sent to Armenia. Below is the text in full.
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.
A few questions for Dro:
- Why didn’t you simply bring the items along with you in separate suitcases? As far as I remember, it only costs about $150 to bring aboard an additional piece of baggage other than the two-suitcase limit for international flights that is granted by most passengers. In the past I have shipped printers, some tools and various other bulky personal items in my suitcases by first wrapping them tightly in a couple layers of bubble wrap so that they would survive the trip without damage, and they always have. No one from customs at the airport has ever made a fuss about what was contained in my suitcases.
- Did you offer or even consider paying a bribe at Noragavit to avoid all these hassles? Often that’s the best solution to circumvent such nightmares. It’s how the system works in Armenia, unfortunately, as absurd and unacceptable the practice is. However, sometimes offering bribes will not work, especially at the Customs House near the airport which intercepts anything shipped by freight carriers like UPS, FedEx, DHL and others. I hate paying bribes/fees/donations, the term changing depending upon which agency or organization you run up against, but after several years of living here I have come to accept that sometimes, in order to avoid going insane with bureaucratic red tape, it’s the only solution.
- Did you consider shipping these items via the United States Post Office? I have often had items transported to Armenia that way but I never needed to pay any taxes, bribes or anything else using the USPS. I have only had problems with sending or receiving items via FedEx.
In retrospect, what would you have done differently, or others reading this entry for that matter?
First to whoever wrote the above questions, i do not pay bribes. I did not come to Armenia to cave into corruption or adapt to any backwardness that exists here. Second, under 105dzev a repatriate is allowed to bring in one car and one container of used personal items into Armenia without value added custom taxes. Instead of bringing one whole container of my personal items, i just put what i could in the back of the car i shipped here. Those items were too large for other means of shipping which would cost a lot, and were not large enough for one full container.
What I wrote above is not even half of the torture i’ve been through since in order to retrieve my items. I will make my protest heard loudly and both customs agency and Diaspora ministry will have to be held accountable for their actions or inactions that hold back this country from growth.