Showing Age: Museum dedicated to founding of Yerevan has nothing to celebrate
By Arpi Harutyunyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
On October 8th, while thousands celebrated the 2,787th birthday of Yerevan, the occasion was mournful for the director and staff of the museum where the very creation of the capital is documented.
The Erebuni Museum – on the site that was the first settlement of the city – is threatened by wear and tear and perceived disregard.
“The monument is deteriorating, the museum goes out of use, and the pages of history are being deleted from our memory and the earth, while our statesmen celebrate the 2787 years of the destructing of historic Yerevan,” says Suren Malkhasyan, the museum’s embittered director. He reckons that the $180,000 or more allocated by the State for this year’s two-day birthday celebration, could have made long-lasting improvements to his decaying history museum.
“The open-air citadel-museum is gradually destroyed since there is no roof above them. The Karmir Blur (the name of the museum, meaning “Red Hill”) has collapsed recently,” he complains.
Erebuni, where in 782 B.C. the first settlers built a fortress and created a city center, includes an indoor museum, and an outdoor ruins. According to the director, some 5-6,000 guests visit each year.
But weather and neglect are turning the site into less of an attraction and more of an eyesore.
The museum’s current budget of about $15,000 is financed by the Ministry of Culture (including salaries for the director and 47 staff). At about 50 cents for locals, and about $2 for foreigners, admission costs cover minimal expenses.
“The situation in both open-air and indoor museums is terrible today,” the director says. “The rains pour under the walls of the Erebuni citadel, while in indoor museums some of the exposition halls have turned useless because of the dampness.” (The museum was not eligible for the Lincy Foundation’s 2001-03 culture campaign because it’s application was not filed in time.)
In response to Armenia Now’s Inquiry on what does the Ministry of Culture and Youth Issues (responsible for the museum) do to reconstruct Erebuni and its branches, said: “We are well aware of the bad condition of the museums, especially the open-air citadel,” head of the Museum, Library and Archive Department at the Ministry Of Culture Anahit Galstyan told ArmeniaNow. “We know Karmir Blur has big problems. But it is unknown when the reconstruction works will begin. I can say we have planned to open a studio-laboratory in Erebuni Museum specializing in Urartu studies.”
The date of Yerevan’s birth is decided by the year of 782 B.C. when Urartu King Argishti I founded the town of Erebuni. Yerevan anniversaries have been celebrated since 1968, the year when the Erebuni Museum (with its Karmir Blur and Shengavit branches) was founded.
The Erebuni citadel is an open-air museum of more than two hectares that include military, business and religious complexes, the larger part of which were unearthed during excavations in the late 1960s.
The Karmir Blur Museum is closed up at present, due, Malhkasyan says, to its poor conditions. Keeping historic and cultural treasures in such a place, the director says, is “a crime”.
In fact, museum employees, anticipating the building’s collapse, removed valuables and put them in the site’s other indoor museum.
Malkhasyan jokes saying they have appealed to all agencies but the funeral service, but they have not received any response.
Erebuni has been repaired only once since 1968, and even then, only cosmetically.
“If only 15 million drams (about $34,000) of the sum, that was allocated for celebrations, were allotted to our museum we would reconstruct the Karmir Blur, and would somewhat repair Erebuni. Who needs the events if they are organized at the expense of preserving the museum,” says Malhkasyan.
According to Anahit Yesayan, head of Information Service of the Municipality, funding reconstruction of the museum is not under the municipal responsibility.
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