WHO SAYS THAT YEREVAN IS 2796 YEARS OLD? (VIDEO)
10:52 | July 15,2014 | Social
Which of Yerevan buildings buried in construction dust and debris is
more than 200 years old?
Sedrak Baghdasaryan, Head of the Victims of State Needs NGO, addresses
the question to the city officials who are decorating the city with
balloons and artificial butterflies.
For example, the House of Officers built in 1839 ‘saw’ Armenia’s
sovietization and independence, hosted great enlighter Khachatur
Abovyan, became theatre and cinema and later served as a military dorm,
but the building was destroyed during the years of independence.
In 2005, the city authorities decided to replace the 175-year-old
monument with a pizzeria. It was this very building that Khachatur
Abovyan left one morning and was never seen again. There was an oak
tree in the yard which had been planted by the famous writer.
The famous Gilanyan lemonade factory, another historical and cultural
monument in Armenia, stood in the other part of the city, just opposite
Vazgen Sargsyan street.
“Our organization addressed a letter to the Ministry of Culture
alarming that the factory and the House of Officers had been destroyed
without the consent of the Ministry,” Mr Baghdasaryan recalls.
However, the Ministry neglected their alarms.
Karo Ayvazyan, Head of the Department of Historical and Cultural
Monument Preservationat the Ministry of Culture, says the remains of
the two buildings are currently in the territory of Renco Company. The
city authorities intend to restore the buildings on Arami and Byuzand
streets within the framework of Old Yerevan project. The project was
to have been implemented in 2007. The Old Yerevan project envisages
moving the buildings dating back to late XIX – early XX centuries to
one of the main sections of the capital. Today the authorities remind
about the project every time a new monument is destroyed in Yerevan
but they never build another in its place.