Sergey Shahverdian, the head of Karabakh’s tourism department, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that the government in Stepanakert has spent 30 million drams ($83,000) for that purpose since 2008 and plans to finance more restoration work next year.
“All the cultural heritage preserved in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is the property of the Karabakh people,” said Shahverdian. “Accordingly, in restoring monuments, we don’t differentiate with Armenian and Muslim architectural sites.”
In his words, two of the three Shia mosques as well as an Islamic “madrasa” building mostly repaired by the Karabakh authorities are located in Shushi, Karabakh’s second most important town. It was mostly populated by Azerbaijanis before being liberated by Karbakh Armenian forces in 1992.
Shahverdian added that the repairs there were also sponsored by Arshbishop Pargev Martirosian, the Shushi-based head of the Artsakh (Karabakh) diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. But he gave no details of that assistance.
Town residents, many of them former Armenian refugees from Baku and other parts of Azerbaijan, seemed divided in their assessment of the restoration effort. “I agree so long as they remain only historial monuments,” one woman told RFE/RL.Azerbaijani war.
YEREVAN -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will not attend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for…
BY ARUNANSH B. GOSWAMI The largest election in the world is ongoing in the largest…
LOS ANGELES – As April comes to a close, the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian…
WASHINGTON, DC -- Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife have been charged…
BURBANK -- The Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America has announced the…
PARIS -- Armenia ranks 43rd (up from 49th last year) in the 2024 World Press Freedom…