Culture

The peculiar character of Komitas has accompanied the Armenian nation for many years. Finally, in 2015, the Komitas Museum-Institute was established as an embodiment of the tremendous respect and veneration for the master. Regional Post talked with the director of the Museum-Institute Nikolay Kostandyan about what has been going on there since the day of its establishment.

2019 marks the 150th birth anniversary of prominent Armenian composer and ethnomusicologist Komitas Vardapet. “The Future Thinker” is an expression used by Komitas when signing one of the letters he wrote in Paris in 1906 to his close musician friend Margarit Babayan. He recounts about the new piano pieces he is composing and is delighted about the fact that foreigners express so much interest about Armenian music. The 150th birth anniversary of Komitas is the right moment to retrospectively look back at Komitas’s legacy, shed light on how art can become a powerful bond of unity and play a vital role in education and intercultural dialogue.

Every year, on one of the days in May, tens of thousands of Armenians spend the day in museums till late at night. And, for the workers of the museums, it's probably the most loaded day of the year. This year, on the following day of this international event, we visited several museums to talk with the security guards about the usual, not crowded days.

The Armenian diaspora has always made a lot of efforts to preserve the Armenian culture and heritage outside of their homeland and make foreigners feel a part of that experience. They always sticked to the mission of raising awareness about our cultural and literary patrimony. The Museums and Cultural centers built all over the world many centuries ago or recently, from Fresno to Singapore contributed greatly to that mission. Here is a selection of the best Armenian museums abroad that are worth visiting.

Matenadaran is currently one of the most tourist-ridden landmarks of the Armenian capital, without which would be impossible to imagine Yerevan’s modern architecture and the urban spirit. But it is much more than a simple museum, a library or a research institution. It is one of the crucial loci of Armenian modern history, one of the crucial spaces which created modern Armenia as it is today.

A decade ago, one of Yerevan’s architectural landmarks, Cascade, finally became something more than just a huge stairway to Zeytoun district. It was renovated and inhabited by the pieces of contemporary art. The initiator of the project was American-Armenian businessman and philanthropist Gerard Cafesjian. It is called Cafesjian Center for the Arts now. Regional Post talked to the Center’s head, Vahagn Marabyan, about the things that have taken place recently, and those that are on their way.

There more than 140 museums of different subjects and sizes in Armenia. Regional Post selected 12 of them, that should definitely be in your must-visit list.

In 2018, a part of Yerevan’s historical Kond district was turned into an open air street-art gallery. We talked about this amazing art project with its author Sergey Navasardyan (aka yerevantropics).