CULTURE CONSERVATION IS EVERYONE’S PROBLEM
NVARD OHANJANIAN

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
Oct 6 2005

Since July the NKR Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport has done
considerable work for conservation and study of the historical and
cultural monuments of Artsakh. The government provided 37 million
drams for cleaning the 7 Armenian cemeteries of Shushi. Since the
end of July, within a month the second cemetery of Shushi occupying
5 hectares of land was cleared of bushes, grass, trees clinging to
the tombs, the gravestones damaged by the Azerbaijanis were returned
to their places. Only the walnut trees and other fruit trees which
do not damage the tombs were kept. According to the head of the
department for conservation and study of monuments Slava Sarghissian,
the staff of the department often organizes expeditions. Recently
they have visited the valley of the Badara River, particularly the
village of Lesnoy which used to be inhabited by Azerbaijanis in the
Soviet years. “We registered over 80 Armenian monuments around this
settlement (church, monastery, cemeteries with khachkar gravestones),”
said S. Sarghissian and added that the studies in Badara are going
on and over 200 monuments are still to be registered. According to
him, one of the picturesque sites in Artsakh the valley is should be
turned into a conservation area. “Recently we considered the issue of
creating historical and cultural conservation areas of “Khachen”,
“Dizak” and “Shushi”. We also need to consider the question of
creating a similar conservation area in the valley of the Badara,
allowing to preserve valuable historical and cultural monuments and
to conserve nature and animals which are ruthlessly destroyed and
killed,” said S. Sarghissian. “The pheasant which was widely spread
around settlements is now rarely found. The hare and the deer have
become almost extinct, let alone the bear. In some rivers they fish
using illegal methods, in the months when fishing is not allowed,”
said Slava Sarghissian. According to S. Sarghissian, this spring
they travelled in the region of Hadrut and studied monuments which
had not been studied before, as well as registered new valuable
historical and cultural objects. Near the source located to the
West of Gtchavank a small khachkar with an inscription was found in
April. Unfortunately, it has disappeared. Visiting the same place
with a group of specialists from Armenia, they discovered that the
khachkar had been replaced with another, smaller and less valuable
one. “Unfortunately, these replacements are now very frequent. And
the worst thing about it is that this business tempts not only people
who do not understand anything in this, but also men of the church,”
he said. The department studied a number of monuments in the region
of Kashatagh, in the valleys of the rivers Aghavno and Ghochaz where
they discovered that a Niva car had driven by the historical bridge
built at a height of 7 meters across the Ghochaz and damaged part of
it. “There are two historical bridges in this part. One of them is
damaged and cannot be used, the other may collapse after the mentioned
happening. This is a real crime. If the bridge collapses, people will
not be able to cross the river at this part,” said Slava Sarghissian.