Dr. Mariam Khachatryan, urban development Ph.D. at the University of Paris-Est, spoke about church building, saying that it gained momentum especially after the collapse of the USSR, as the Soviet empire was considered an atheist country. She noted that often, business owners or any wealthy Armenian in Russia want to restore the church of their village and community, but there are not always documents, drawings, or projects about the church, and the benefactor is faced with a problem because they can not restore it according to their will and taste.
“For example, when they wanted to restore the 17th century church in Aparan, there were problems there as well because the architect they chose was not a restorer and there was a problem with documents. They just wanted to change the roof, but even when changing the roof, it was necessary to restore it according to the standards and not to take it and put another roof. And since there are no documents of already built churches, people think about building a new one to avoid a headache, especially since there is no problem with naming a new one,” said Mariam Khachatryan. She stressed that, unfortunately, when building new and huge churches in Armenia, people often move away from the traditional Armenian church building.
As for Gagik Tsarukyan’s wish to build a statue of Jesus Christ, Mariam Khachatryan said that the statue has nothing to do with urban development and can not be considered an element of urban development. It begs only for faith and, in some sense, for tourism.
“He wants it to be the tallest statue of Jesus, the most influential. He tells people to send applications, but no one knows where it will be placed. He says at the highest point, and where at the highest point, at the highest point of Yerevan or Armenia? If he means the highest point in Armenia, then it should be at the foot and the top of Aragats. In that case, how many tourists will go there, and then how will the statue be built there?
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If he is talking about Yerevan, Yerevan is already full of statues. By the way, statues of Jesus Christ should be in open places, but we do not have such places. And then the bids should not be announced in the air, everything should be considered in ideology, and the statue should speak to the landscape,” said the professor of Urban Development at the University of Paris-Est.
Gohar Hakobyan
