Armenpress News Agency, Armenia
 Wednesday


Project on creating center for visits in Byurakan Observatory
presented to President Sargsyan


YEREVAN, JULY 19, ARMENPRESS. Byurakan Observatory proposes to create
a center for visits which will include a virtual museum of
astronomical history, a hall for public lectures, improvement of the
road leading to the telescope, as well as its adjacent areas, reports
Armenpress.

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan today visited the Byurakan
Observatory aimed at getting introduced on the idea to establish such
center.

Director of the Observatory Areg Mikayelyan said the project will be
ready in the upcoming two weeks.

“The visit of the President is very important since only the visit to
the scientific center is important in itself in terms of the public
attitude towards the field. Science requires much more serious
investments at all directions, such as scientific research, technical,
preparation of cadres and etc. It is being carried out by various
means, and in this case we have proposed a program which is based on
the so-called scientific tourism idea one of the most important points
of which can be the Byurakan Observatory. The talk is about to make
the visit to scientific places interesting for tourists: those are
both the contemporary scientific structures, and the historical sites,
and the science museums and medieval universities”, the Director said.

According to Areg Mikayelyan, there are numerous such kind of places,
and it is necessary to coordinate the visits to such places for
tourism directions.

“Armenia has huge wealth in this field, however, it is necessary to
coordinate and examine this. Today the Byurakan Observatory hosts
5.000 visitors annually which is very low since the number could be
ten times more. The main problem is linked with improvement of
domestic conditions. If we make a little investment and create more
comfortable conditions for tourists, school-children, as well as the
remaining visitors, the flow will increase, the tour companies will
include Byurakan in their packages”, he said, adding that the
President’s attitude was positive, although he proposed to discuss the
project after developing it in-detail and presenting with respective
calculations.