COOPERATION – PLEDGE OF SHOUSHI’S REVIVAL
DeFacto Agency
July 9 2008
Armenia
Shoushi Revival Benevolent Fund has been working for two years. A
delegation of Republic of Armenia headed by RA PM Tigran Sargsian
visited the town of Shoushi within the frames of the visit to
Nagorno-Karabakh. The meeting with representatives of Shoushi Revival
Fund, which was held here, became some report on the Fund’s two-year
activity.
To begin with, the meeting was organized at the Information Center
for Art, Trade and Tourism, which had been repaired on the Fund’s
initiative.
Grigor Hovhannisian, the Fund Executive Director, presented the work
carried out for the last period. A number of principal directions were
proposed as perspective programs for the town’s restoration. Shoushi
is to be restored as all-Armenian cultural, educational, scientific
and tourist center, as a center, where measures of all-Armenian
significance can be held, and, finally, as Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s
second administrative center. Grigor Hovhannisian is sure there are
all conditions to carry out the work. Another part of the Fund’s
works is targeted at rendering assistance to Shoushi’s population.
According to Grigor Hovhannisian, initial point for the beginning
of perspective programs’ realization is elaboration of the town’s
general plan. There used to be a few general plans of Shoushi. The
last one was elaborated in 1998; however, in Grigor Hovhannisian’s
words, the variant cannot ensure the town’s perspective development.
A new project of Shoushi’s general plan was created last year on
the Fund’s initiative, with the participation of quite authoritative
specialists and structures, which was targeted not only at maintaining
Shoushi’s Armenian historical image, but also at ensuring the
town’s further development. "We are sure that Shoushi can become a
town-preserve", Shoushi Fund Executive Director stated.
For last years the Fund not only made programs, but also realized
some program parts. For example, Information Center for Art, Trade
and Tourism was founded in Shoushi; Yerevan Cinema was repaired and
equipped with modern facilities. By the Fund’s efforts typographical
craft, which has long traditions in Shoushi, has been revived after
interval that lasted for decades.
The Fund’s next program initiative will be repair of Shoushi Kanach
drug store. Besides the restoration of this historical monument,
a work on improvement of the museum’s territory adjoining it and
repair of Tatevos’s spring will be carried out as well.
The Fund also realized a number of social, educational and medicinal
programs. Steps on activating small and medium business were undertaken
in cooperation with American University of America. Taking into
consideration the course of the town’s development, serious attention
was paid to training specialists in the sphere of services. It is
planned to start works on improvement of Shoushi’s water-supply system
within the next few months.
Grigor Hovhannisian is sure that the above-mentioned and other programs
will efficiently start in case of the Fund’s more active cooperation
with NKR state structures.
NKR PM Ara Harutyunian assured the meeting’s participants that the
problems Shoushi faced were in the center of the state’s attention.
According to the NKR government’s head, the fact that Shoushi’s
general plan worked out by the Fund has not been approved yet is
a normal phenomena, since NKR government’s appropriate structures
had not participated in the works on general plan’s elaboration. In
other words, not all priority concepts of the government concerning
the perspective of the town’s development have been reflected in
the general plan. "We vaguely picture what the Fund realizes", in
his turn, stated the NKR Minister of Urban development and expressed
bewilderment, "it should be taken into consideration that Shoushi’s
restoration is a state program".
Yervand Zakharian, Yerevan Mayor, the Chairman of Shoushi Revival
Fund Board of Trustees, also stated that Shoushi’s restoration was a
state program, and if some programs planned by the Fund are dragged
out the reason is unsatisfactory level of cooperation between the
Fund and NKR government.
In any case, both parties voiced confidence that the gap would be
stopped in the near future.