Why shouldn’t foreign guests see the ruins of Dvin?

Our editorial office has received a letter from a reader voicing concerns over the desolate ruins of Dvin, the historical Armenian capital situated on the territory of Turkey.

The author of the letter, Jorge Hamyan, says it is very good that people, especially foreign guests, do not almost visit the site and thus never get a chance to look into the clay pots lying there.

“It is good because the shabby appearance of Dvin will give the [foreign tourist] no hint about its political-administrative and economic significance as a center of the Armenian vicegerency which encompassed Georgia and Caucasian Albania. What s/he can see is a desolate site smothered in dust and thorns, with only one tableau indicating that the place used to be an important city in the East,” he says.

Hamyan speaks further of an elderly woman “delivering lectures” about the history of Khor Virap and getting embarrassed every time upon seeing a tourist finding a handful of cigarette-ends in the clay pots or being greeted by a frowning watchman at the entrance.
 

He expresses concerns that the competent authorities in Armenia might find themselves very pressed for time to deal with the ruins of the ancient capital and choose instead to undertake the restoration of Ani which has lost its one-time image of a majestic city.
 

“You are right. Ani is much more important, but you must promise to give attention to the ruins of Dvin,” he says.
 

Tert.am contacted the Ministry of Culture for comments but their spokesperson told our correspondent that a state service dealing with the maintenance of historical-cultural monuments is responsible for the preservation of Dvin. The service is planning this year to turn the ancient city into a historical-cultural reserve.
 

Dvin was a large commercial city and the capital of early medieval Armenia. It was situated north of the previous ancient capital of Armenia, the city of Artaxata, along the banks of the Metsamor River, 35 km to the south of modern Yerevan. The site of the ancient city is currently not much more than a large hill located between modern Hnaberd (just off the main road through Hnaberd) and Verin Dvin, Armenia. Systematic excavations at Dvin that have proceeded since 1937 have produced an abundance of materials, which have shed light into the Armenian culture of the 5th to the 13th centuries.