What is our project?
“Be-Sit-Ka'' is an original Awesome project that intends to encourage communal presence and participation of diverse groups in neighborhood gazebos known as "Բիսեդկա" literary from Russian - a conversation spot/place. For the first part of the project, we decided to make starter packs for bisetkas. The starter packs will have all the necessary and widely used products, such as sunflower seeds, trash bags, cards, and board games (mini-sized and multipurpose, e.g., a chess board could also work as a checkerboard) and instructions on how to use the pack. And each box can have different contents and customers can choose. This will be a helping factor in reinventing bisetka culture. Through time, the culture has become deeply rooted in our daily lives, which is why they can be seen around every building and block. The crucial question is who exactly is using them and how?

Bisetkas are mainly used by men, primarily by elderly men, who play several board games such as cards or Nardi. That is their space to get together, grab some drinks, spend hours in there, and ultimately make a mess by leaving their trash cans or other kinds of waste after them. We have conducted our research around this based on our own plentiful experiences, as there have been times that we as girls, collectively and individually, could not sit for long in the neighborhood bisetkas, as the men there expect us to go soon so they could claim their usual spot instead of waiting (e.g., circling us until we leave, gazing intrusively, and making snide comments). Our Awesome project aims to redefine the bisetka culture.