Ilham Aliyev opened a carpet museum in Shushi, and the fate of the unique artifacts of the Shushi Carpet Museum saved from the same building remains uncertain. The unique Armenian carpets and rugs dating back to the 17th-20th centuries, which were evacuated and saved by Vardan Astsaturyan, the founder of the Shushi Carpet Museum, are temporarily “sheltered” at the A. Tamanyan National Museum-Institute of Architecture.
In a conversation with Aravot Daily, Mr. Astsaturyan said that 120 carpets remained in Shushi, which came under the control of the Azerbaijanis and were looted by the Azerbaijani soldiers. He expressed regret that the issue of allocating museum space for exclusive carpets remains “hanging in the air.”
Moreover, both the governments of Artsakh and Armenia are silent on the issue. The founder of the Shushi Carpet Museum also says that in 2021, the samples evacuated from the Shushi Carpet Museum have been displayed at the A. Tamanyan National Museum of Architecture since February 2021, but no representatives from the governments of Armenia and Artsakh visited the museum. “Six months ago, only the Minister of Culture of Artsakh came, while no one from the Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia has come so far. Once, the head of the Foreign Ministry’s UNESCO department visited,” says Astsaturyan.
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Gohar Hakobyan
