ARMENAK KHACHATRIAN: PRESERVATION OF CULTURAL VALUES IN ARMENIA IN HARMONY WITH CURRENT STATE OF COUNTRY

Noyan Tapan
Feb 5, 2008

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 5, NOYAN TAPAN. The preservation state of cultural
values in Armenia is in harmony with the current state of the
country. Thus Armenak Khachatrian, the Deputy Head of the Agency for
Preservation of Cultural Values under the RA Ministry of Culture,
described the sphere, he is in charge of, at the "Urbat" club on
February 4.

In his words, the problems on the preservation of cultural values are
of "conservative" character. "For many years the specialists of this
sphere, who are devotees, have tried to provide as much as possible
the return of every valuable speciman temporarily being exported from
the country." At present, 6 million moveable cultural values, that is
to say, pictures, sculptures, specimen of applied arts, photos, books,
to name but a few, are being preserved in the 67 state depositories
of Armenia.

In the estimation of Khachatrian, the RA Law on "Export and Import
of Cultural Values", adopted in 2004, is made very much liberal in
comparison with 1994. The previous law was very rough, had numerous
flaws, "hindered the activities of citizens." At present, individual
citizens can take any value of 50 years of antiquity belonging to
them out of the country, if it is signed by the author.

A. Khachatrian considered the lack of experts and experimental
laboratories as the most important problem existing in this sphere. "At
present, experimental examination is being made only through visual
observation," he stressed.

A. Khachatrian stated that no case was recorded during his tenure,
when temporarily exported cultural values were not returned. He
also stated that 19 moveable exhibits, which are included in the
list of specially preserved exhibits, are not to be exported from
Armenia: three of them are in the History Museum of Armenia and 16
in Matenadaran (Armenian repository of ancient manuscripts).

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress