New house of culture opens in Armenia’s Vedi (photos)

A house of culture opened Wednesday afternoon in the town Vedi (Ararat region) in the place of the old institution built in the Soviet period.

The ceremony brought together many guests and officials, including President Serzh Sargsyan who is on a working visit to the Ararat region.

The town’s mayor, Varuzhan Barseghyan, has described the initiative as a good opportunity to preserve the old and good traditions of Vedi.

The former house of culture was pulled down in 1988 but the reconstruction activities were suspended for years due to problems.

“Today we have a modern, fully equipped house of culture. We are a community of 14,000, but we didn’t have a house of culture. It will be the location of our main activities, a place for organizing leisure and different events,” the mayor told reporters.

The institution’s director, Arthur Samosyan said they are going to launch classes of song and dance mand folk instruments.

Minister of Urban Development Samvel Tadevosyan assured the guests that the construction conforms to all the development standards.

“A total of 350 million Drams ($141,987,868,329) was spent on the construction work. The house of culture is a two-storey building with a total area of 1,350 square meters,” he said.