Armenia’s Gyumri to host bread festival

The Avetik Isahakyan Museum of Gyumri (Shirak region) will host next Friday a bread festival to celebrate the groundbreaking opening of a tandoor (metal oven or jar dug in the earth), reports the Ministry of Culture.

As part of the event, there will be master classes by skilled bakers, as well as a wedding ceremony or a blessing event around the tandoor.

The celebration will introduce the participants to the different aspects of bakery art and the different functions of bread - cited from bibliographic records, the Holy Book, the Armenian national heroic epic and national customs.
 
This year’s festival is remarkable due to the fact that Lavash (Armenian flat bread) was included in the UNESCO list of non-tangible cultural heritage. The traditional national bread will be showcased as a symbol of welfare and the fertility of the newly-wed.

The festival’s mission is to unite people and return them to values symbolizing the continuity of life and creativeness of spirit. It is also aimed an enlivening the cultural life in the second largest city and the region and promoting the preservation of traditional cultural values.