REPLICA OF HISTORICAL ARMENIAN SAILING SHIP ARRIVES IN ESTONIAN CAPITAL
Baltic News Service
July 11, 2006 Tuesday 11:57 PM EET
A replica of a historical Armenian sailing ship currently on a voyage
round Europe has arrived in Tallinn.
The vessel named after the medieval Armenian kingdom of Cilicia was
built to a 13-century design near the Armenian capital Yerevan and
transported from their by road to the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti
where its trip started.
The leader of the expedition, president of the nautical club Ayas
Karen Balayan said the ship is retracing the travels of Cilician
merchants who maintained close commercial ties with European ports
in the 13th century.
The Cilicia has already crossed seven seas and visited 22 countries
during its voyage.
The expedition is arranged in two stages: the ship first sailed from
Poti to Venice where it spent the winter, and this spring it headed
from Venice to Amsterdam and from there to northern Europe.
In all ports the vessel visits a cultural program is put on and
meetings with local Armenian communities take place.
"The aim of the expedition is to remind the world that the ancient
Armenia was a maritime nation and had a merchant fleet of its own,"
Yuri Vartanyan, a member of the Amrenian Society in Estonia, told BNS.
The present-day Armenia does not have a maritime border.
The Cilicia will at the end of this week sail from Tallinn to St.
Petersburg, Russia and from there along rivers to the Black Sea. The
final leg of its journey will take it by road from Poti back to
Armenia.