Expert concerned over state of national monuments outside Armenia

Samvel Karapetyan, Head of the Research on Armenian Architecture (RAA) NGO, held a meeting with journalists Thursday.

He presented the work the NGO has carried out this year. Karapetyan pointed out a poor condition of Armenian historical and cultural monuments outside Armenia.

For example, all the churches located in Agulis, Nakhijevan, Azerbaijan, were photographed from the space. However, after comparing the photographs with Azerbaijan’s map, expert saw that the Armenian monuments shared the fate of the Juga khachkars (cross-stones).

Armenian monuments are also endangered in Turkey: along with renovation of the Akhtamar church in Van, which was intended as a showcase, Mreni church of the 7th century was destroyed.

Numerous monuments have been destroyed in Georgia as well. With respect to the Nshan church (Church of the Holy Sign), Karapetyan said that Georgia’s authorities are keeping their promise to restore the church.

As to the NGO’s further projects, Karapetyan said that the NGO will continue publishing its journal, books, as well as a series of volumes on all the provinces of Western Armenia. The series is to be published in 2015.

“We have scaled up our activities in recent three years due to an agreement with Armenia’s Ministry of Health on registration of monuments outside Armenia,” Karapetyan said. It has been the NGO’s desire to publish a scholarly journal, and the project has been launched this year.

“The journal is necessary as some research results cannot be published as a book. We would not like to publish our research results in different journals,” Karapetyan said.

“The name of the journal, Vartsk (Reward), means our duty to our forefathers’ memory,” Karapetyan said.

The NGO has also released the 15th volume of our studies of monuments, including a three-language volume on monuments of Ani.