Yerevan Armenian Craft Museum Before leaving Abovyan Street, drop into the Armenian Craft Museum (No. 64), with its unique examples of silver and German silver jewellery, woodwork, carpets, earthenware and embossed goods. Armenia today has many skilled craftsmen, who continue and develop the traditional folk crafts, and their products have been successfully displayed in many Soviet cities, France, the USA, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Argentina, Japan, Algeria and Nigeria. The museum is open from 11:00 to 16:00 every day except Monday. Entrance is free. (Source: Yerevan Guide) National Gallery of Armenia The floors above the National History Museum contain the National Picture Gallery. Start by taking the elevator to the top, then descend through the huge collection of Russian, Armenian, and European works, some of the latter copies or else spoils of WWII divided among the various Soviet republics. (Source: RDA) Minas Avetisyan Museum 29 Nalbandian Street, Yerevan +56-07-87 Cafesjian Museum of Contemporary Art Under construction at the top of the Cascade in Yerevan, to open in 2007. Will house Gerard Cafesjian's pre-eminent collection of glass artwork, including the definitive collection of works by renowned artists Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova. The permanent displays will also include a broad range of prominent 20th century pieces including both paintings and sculpture. Yeghishe Charents House-Museum The outstanding Soviet Armenian poet Yegishe Charents (1897-1937) lived a little further up the avenue, in No. 17 on the second floor. His flat has been made into a museum, which is visited by thousands of the poet’s admirers and visitors to the city. (Source: Yerevan Guide) Children's Art Gallery Armenia has long been famed for its artists, sculptors and stone-carvers, and children are brought up to love art. For this reason the world’s first Children’s Picture Gallery (No. 13 on the corner of Abovyan and Sayat-Nova streets) is of interest. Over the years the gallery has developed into a true centre for developing an aesthetic sense in the rising generation. The spacious building includes exhibition halls, workshops, a concert ball and a library. There have been works by children from the Soviet republics, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Britain, France, the USA, Canada, India and Japan. Every year there are several one-man works by children aged from three to 16. Contemporary Art Museum The Museum of Modern Art occupies the ground floor of No. 7. Frequent works by Soviet and foreign artists are held here, always attracting many lovers of painting, drawing and sculpture. (Source: Yerevan Guide) Erebuni Fortress Museum The Urartian kingdom centered on Lake Van in Eastern Turkey gave Yerevan its first major impetus. The Urartians built the citadel of Erebuni, on the hill of that name in SE Yerevan. (Take Tigran Mets Blvd from Republic Square, then turn left following the trolley tracks on the major street about half a km past the train station). A substantial museum at the base of the hill formerly known as Arin Berd houses many of the finds, including a few examples of Urartu's splendid metalwork. The citadel itself was founded by Argishti I son of Menua, King of Urartu in the year 782, the first Urartian conquest on the East side of the Arax. Genocide Museum The Genocide Memorial and Museum at Tsitsernakaberd ("Swallow Castle") sits on the site of a Iron Age fortress, all above-ground trace of which seems to have disappeared. The Museum's testimony to the 1915 destruction of the Armenian communities of Eastern Anatolia is moving, and the monument itself is austere but powerful. The riven spire symbolizes the sundering of the Eastern and Western branches of the Armenian people. The view over the Ararat valley is striking. Geological Museum 10 Abovyan Street, Yerevan +58-06-63 The museum houses a display of various building materials: tufas, pumice-stones, slags, basalts, granites and marbles of the most varied shades, and the metals and minerals in which the republic abounds. There are also fossilised fauna and flora from ancient times. The largest single exhibit is the unusually big restored skeleton of a primordial elephant. The museum is open from 10:00 to 17:00 every day except Sunday and Monday. (Source: Yerevan Guide) National History Museum The State History Museum in Republic Square (formerly Lenin Square) is notable for the statues of Catherine the Great and Lenin squirreled away in a back courtyard ready for any change in the political winds. The important archaeological collection from Stone Age through Medieval periods is dark and almost unlabeled, but should not be missed. Note a Latin inscription from Ejmiatsin attesting to the presence of a Roman garrison. There are some interesting models of early modern Yerevan and other historical exhibits of interest to those comfortable in Armenian or Russian. Avetik Issahakian House-Museum 20 Zarubyan Street, Yerevan +56-24-24 Avetik Isahakian was one of Soviet Armenia's foremost poets. The last 5 years of his life he spent in Yerevan in a house which was converted into a museum in 1963. The museum consists of Avetik's workroom, bedroom, garden, and drawing-room, as well as a number of exhibition halls which focus on different periods of his life. Aram Khachaturian Museum The Aram Khachaturian museum is located off of Baghramian, two minutes walking distance from Moscovian. The building has 5 high arches and houses a very complete collection of memorabilia from the course of Khachaturian's illustrious career. Posters, costumes, notes and more fill room after room. You will also see where he lived, and can listen to many of his works in a well equipped listening room full of CD's. Manougian Museum (Echmiadzin) This museum houses an impressive collection of primarily non-secular art as well as a very colorful sampling of the gifts Katholicos Vasgen received from around the world during his leadership. The historical crowns and staffs of gold and gems, the highly decorated priests garbs, the rugs, the ceramics, and many other items are displayed in this large museum, just past the arch across from the main cathedral's entrance. Matenadaran Manuscript Museum The Matenadaran (manuscript library) is the other world-class museum in Yerevan, not for its exhibitions per se, but rather for its status as the eternal (one hopes) repository for Armenia's medieval written culture. A vast gray basalt mass at the top of Mashtots Blvd. (built 1945-57, architect M. Grigorian), the Matenadaran is guarded by the statue of primordial alphabet-giver S. Mashtots (ca. 400) and those of the other main figures of Armenian literature: Movses Khorenatsi (5th -- or maybe 8th -- century "father of Armenian history"); T'oros Roslin (13th c. manuscript illuminator in Hromkla/Rum Qalat near Edessa); Grigor Tatevatsi (theologian of Tatev Monastery, died 1409); Anania Shirakatsi (7th c. mathematician, studied in Trebizond, fixed the Armenian calendar); Mkhitar Gosh (died 1213, cleric and law codifier); and Frik (ca. 1230-1310, poet). There are khachkars and other ancient carved stones in the side porticos. Middle East Museum Accessible from the street running behind the State History Museum is the Middle Eastern Museum and Museum of Literature. The former has an interesting collection, including a carpet-weaving display. Migoyan Brothers Museum (Sanahin) Sanahin was the birthplace of Artashes Mikoyants, better known to history as Anastas Mikoyan (1895-1978). His father was a capable but illiterate carpenter at the mines. According to Mikoyan's memoirs, the village of Sanahin had only two literate men, the priest and the (sole) monk of Sanahin monastery. The village itself was impoverished, a holding of the Argutinskii family. Mikoyan was educated at the seminary in Tbilisi at the behest of the visiting Armenian bishop, joined up with Stepan Shahumian, whom he deeply admired, and was the sole survivor of the Baku Commissars, his name somehow left off the list of those to be executed. Parajanov Museum www.paradjanov.com The best museum in Yerevan is small and idiosyncratic, the would-be final home of famed Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990). Though an ethnic Armenian (Parajanian), he was born in Tbilisi and spent most of his professional career in Kiev or Tbilisi. He won international fame with "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" and "The Color of Pomegranates," but his career was crippled by imprisonment (for homosexual liaisons) and denial of resources. Sardarapat Ethnographic Museum (Armavir) Armavir RegionBearing left before the Sardarapat battle monument, a driveway skirts the monument ridge to reach a tourist pavilion (refreshments) and the highly attractive Sardarapat museum. Director (at least of the military museum) is the head (since the untimely 1999 death of Sergei Grigorevich Badalian) of the Armenian Communist Party. The ground floor central hall contains commemorative material from the battle. Martiros Saryan House-Museum Martiros Saryan studied in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was greatly influenced by Russian art, especially by such painters as Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. Even Saryan’s first canvases show his penchant for bright colours, his original vision of the world around him, expressiveness and unusual composition. His cycle of works painted after trips to Turkey, Iran and Egypt first brought him renown. The museum is open from 10:30 to 16:00 (to 15:00 on Wednesdays) every day except Thursday. [Source: Yerevan Guide] Alexander Spendiaryan Museum 21 Nalbandyan Street, Yerevan +58-07-83, 52-12-99 In 1967, the second storey house-museum of Alexander Spendiaryan opened
to the public on the corner of Nalbandyan and Tumanyan. A favorite musical
composer and conductor, his violin, baton, piano and many other personal
and professional items are on display. One display case shows the handwritten
romance "Ay, vardi!" (Oh, Rose), and on his desk by the inkwell
is an unfinished composition... A native of the high mountain village of Lsakh (now Tumanyan), Ovanes Tumanyan (1869-1923) produced masterpieces of national poetry. His verse reflects the sorrow of the Armenian people and a burning protest against their oppressors. His epic works are particularly important in that they depict everyday life in an Armenian village. Some of his poems take historical events as their theme, and are imbued with the ideals of patriotism and the liberation struggle against the foreign invaders. The nineteen rooms of the museum contain an interesting exhibition which describes the life and work of the poet. On the first storey there is a re-creation of the flat in which Tumanyan lived in Tbilisi for many years (he is buried there). The museum is open from 11:00 to 17:00 every day except Monday. (Source: Yerevan Guide) Tumanyan House Museum (Dsegh, Lori Marz) Wood Carving Museum 2,4 Paronyan Street, Yerevan +53-24-61 |
