Protesters in Yerevan succeed in halting work near memorial

A protest against restoration work, which, according to the protesters, is being carried out with violations, was held at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial in Yerevan.

The protesters said that the authorities are deliberately avoiding wide publicity for the restoration work at Tsitsernakaberd.

They believe that attempts to discredit national symbols or even corruption schemes are behind this, Armenia Today reports today.

Protest participant Yelizavet Hovhannisyan told the publication that she recorded violations during the restoration of the memorial on video. According to her, metal beams were inserted into the basalt slabs, which she called a violation, not a restoration. The activist believes that "the work is destructive in nature, and the authorities are acting to the detriment of national interests."

According to her, the memorial is "a shrine, not an object for experiments."

According to another participant in the action, Venera Arzumanyan from Nagorno-Karabakh, the work began without notifying citizens. "This is my memory, the history of my country. The work looks like demolition, not restoration," she noted.

The second stage of the restoration of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute has been ongoing for about two months. Following the results of the action, the head of the Army of Light public organization Karen Arayan said that activists had achieved the suspension of construction work at Tsitsernakaberd.

He said that the Ministry of Education and the Yerevan City Hall promised to provide clarifications on September 8. “Although they should have already had all the justifications before starting such work, since all this has been going on for two months already,” Arayan said, adding that 90% of Armenian citizens have doubts about the legality of the work being carried out. He promised that activists would continue to monitor the situation around the memorial and called for preventing the resumption of work, the publication said.

Earlier, on August 27, the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of Armenia Zhanna Andreasyan announced that the Memorial and the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute would be fully restored to their original form. The state has provided about 800 million drams for these purposes. The Minister called the condition of the museum building and the Memorial Complex "very poor," News Armenia reports.