Very few Armenian monuments left in Dagestan, says expert

The founder of Armenian architecture studies, Samvel Karapetyan, voices alarm over the situation of the Armenian monuments Dagestan.

The expert, who has quite recently returned from the country, told reporters on Monday that very few of those monuments have been preserved, with only cemeteries, churches and apartment buildings remaining standing to date.

“[The town of] Kizlyar used to have three churches and one monastery, which were destroyed in the Soviet years. We saw the old photos at the area studies museum,” he said. “The 19th century St Paul and Peter Church of [capital] Makhachkala exists, but it has turned into a trading hall, with the vendors being sincerely surprised that they sell things in a church.”

Karapetyan said that Makhachkala’s Armenian cemetery covers only one corner of the city’s big cemetery. According to him, only the 1820s’ epitaphs are engraved in Armenian, with all other gravestones bearing only Russian inscriptions.

The expert added that the Armenians of Derbent were hopeful to see their monuments, but their expectations never came true.

“There was a mosque there, which used to be an Armenian church. The church is known from literature, but it turned into a mosque, thus becoming one of the oldest mosques in the city,” he said, adding that he never managed to identify the church’s location.

Karapetyan added that his efforts to find ancient Armenian monuments proved successful only in a 17th century cemetery of Derbent.

“It was seen from the gravestones that the Armenian population inhabited one of the biggest geographic areas. It was a very exemplary cemetery, whereas the situation in Kizlyar was just the contraty. The inscribed Armenian gravestones were stacked up in piles,” he explained.

The expert said the preservation of the Armenian monuments should be on the agenda of the Armenian-Russian relations, stressing in the meantime the importance of Armenia’s assistance in such efforts. The preservation of the Armenian language and loyalty to ethnic roots are the most important things, he said, adding that neither of them can be guaranteed without Armenia’s help.