The possibility of having a subway in the Soviet Union was very limited, and about 16 large cities were refused to start construction of the subway.
In international practice, it was customary to build subways in cities with a population of 1 million or more. By that standard, no metro would be built in Yerevan at all. Completely different approaches, justifications, and arguments were needed here.
And those arguments were found. traffic congestion on the streets of the capital city, traffic jams, prospects for the expansion of the city, complex relief with deep depressions, the presence of natural obstacles, climatic conditions, etc. On the instructions of Karen Demirchyan, the “Haypettrans” design institute headed by director Vladimir Dandurov (he was one of the best specialists in the Union)
prepared the documents justifying the need to build the subway instead of the “underground high-speed” tram. Karen Demirchyan managed to transform the decision of the underground tram in Moscow into the decision of the metro construction.
He breaks the stereotype accepted in international practice, proving that the need and construction of underground transport in Yerevan is greater than in cities with a population of 1 million or more. With such difficulty, the agreement of Moscow was obtained, and on October 6, 1977, the decision of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was published on the construction of the Yerevan Metro.
