The topic under “Face to face” series of talk show of Aravot online is discussed between the publicist Karine Hakobyan and theater critic Ara Khzmalyan.
Aram Abrahamyan – Do you see a logical chain: Afrikyan’s house, Zvartnots, and Garni?
Karine Hakobyan – Circular Park, around Opera, elimination of our entire old Yerevan. One can continue this series and mention the inconsolable state of our monuments and churches today. In other words, how we treat our heritage, our culture. Our priorities are broke, and the culture has been pushed to the background. One of its manifestation was the incident happened in Garni and Zvartnots. The culture has been moved to the backstage, and is serving as a measure, and its symbolic picture is as follows, the Garni temple is on the backstage, in front of it they feast, sitting with the back to the temple, eating and drinking. This is the reflection of our reality, our today’s value system.
A. A. – People sitting around the tables with Garni temple on the back are eating and drinking. Do you see a symbol here?
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Ara Khzmalyan – I am trying to see more specific phenomena. I as a man of writing and written world think that everything starts with a letter, a script. We have a problem of regulating this sector legislatively. I must say that this is not something new in the international practice, the cultural values have long been down from inaccessible dimension and have enter entered into people’s everyday lives. This is an international process. Even the richest country cannot be 100 percent involved in conservation and restoration of its cultural monuments heritage, and with similar events, they are trying to regulate, conserve stones, temples and other values. The issue is whether the money is serving to the purpose. I think that we need to pay attention to the draft law on museums, on which we are working around a year, and after the adoption of this law, I think many issues will be resolved. There is a separate clause there about reserve-museums.
A. A. – In other words, half-naked people are walking, drinking, and eating at Zvartnots temple, and is it done for preservation of the temple?
K. H. – Of course, museums and cultural monuments should be archived and eliminated. They must become available, they must live. And there are ways for it. In reality, money has become a god, and not only in Armenia, moreover, generally, the whole Western civilization is guided by it, and this is the very cause of the crisis.
A. Kh. – It is true that the methods should be decided, but the problem is that our society nowadays has become scandalmonger. The factor of populism, demagogy, is actually very big, because today we have much bigger problems around us, in the hospitals, orphanages, and nursing homes, and they never get a public utterance. Anyone can talk about culture, the one who understands: the one who does not understand, the one who is concerned, and the one who is indifferent. Simply, this is becoming a platform, where each person dissatisfied with his life and health has the opportunity to express dissatisfaction and aggression.
K. H. – Culture is not a museum that should be put in a distance. Culture is our life, and we understand it very well, and this revolt, the complaint happened because we realize that we losing our attitude toward culture are also losing our independence, our identity, in short, we, the Armenian people, are the culture.
A. KH. – Do you believe that all the protestors know where Zvartnots is, and are more or less familiar with the history?
K. H. – It is a secondary question. One knows, one does not know, one knows by hearsay. It is not the matter. Today, we are talking about imperfect legislation and ideology, which we have adopted, and which has no future.
Prepared by ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
“Face to Face” talk show series are released by the Open Society Foundations- Armenia. The views and analyzes found in this broadcast express the opinions of the participants, and are not approved by the Open Society Foundations-Armenia, or its Board. This broadcast is made available thanks to comprehensive financial support by the Open Society Foundations-Armenia, under the mass media support program, grant No 18624.
