"Everywhere in Yerevan I see traces of things being different once. The water from the fountain shaped like a flower, located below the street, at the entrance to a subway, was in the Soviet era visible from the street, Mkrtich tells me.

He says that life was better then.

If only you could have communism without enclosed borders and censorship, it would be easily preferred, much better than capitalism. He says.

I ask, whether it is at all possible to imagine communism without censorship? And what about the deportations? No matter what he tells me about life during the Soviet era, deportation of labour is a necessary part of the planning.

Can forced moving be combined with open borders?

He laughs, doesn’t mean it like that, so seriously. But he is serious about life being better then. Much better.

I look at the traces of the greatness of that time. Florid, angular monuments, wide roads, square concrete houses. An aesthetic so remote from the Little Mermaid. The more I look, the more I begin to doubt what nice really is. What I really think."