Researcher Samvel Karapetyan Passed Away Aged 58

YEREVAN — Historian, researcher and author Samvel Karapetyan passed away on Thursday aged 58. His family confirmed the news to Public Radio of Armenia.

Born on July 30 1961, Karapetyan embarked on an active study of natural monuments in 1975, travelling across Soviet Armenia to collect records. Since 1978, he had been researching the historical Armenian sites currently on the territory of Turkey, taking photographs, conducting measurements and providing detailed descriptions.

Over the past three decades, Karapetyan studied and recorded thousands of samples of historical Armenian architecture in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and neighboring countries. Karapetyan headed the Yerevan branch of the Research on Armenian Architecture NGO.

Karapetyan was also known as an outspoken critic of the treatment of Armenian monuments in Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan·

In 2004, Karapetyan was awarded with Mesrop Mashtots medal of the Artsakh Republic and in 2007 – with the Armenian Presidential Humanitarian Sciences Prize for his work in literature.