President Serzh Sargsyan attends official opening of new permanent at exhibition at Armenian Genocide Museum

RA President Serzh Sargsyan, President of the State Commission on Coordination of the events for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, today attended the official opening ceremony of a new permanent exhibition at the Armenian Genocide Museum.

Accompanied by the members of the State Commission on Coordination of the events for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the museum commission members and by the benefactors, the Armenian President toured the museum-institute, familiarized with the new exhibition content and the conditions provided for their proper presentation. At the end of the tour, Serzh Sargsyan made a note in the honorary guest book. “The new exhibition at the Genocide Museum-Institute, which is devoted to the 100th anniversary of the Mets Eghern, is truly impressive both in terms of its content and presentation. An extensive and effective piece of work has been done.

It seems that we, Armenians, know almost everything about the Armenian Genocide, but such exhibitions uncover some new strata and provide new knowledge even to the most well-informed.

As a visitor, coming out of the museum, I reaffirm what is in all our minds and on all our lips – “I Remember and Demand,” read President Serzh Sargsyan.

On the occasion of the official opening of the new exhibition, the Armenian President presented the museum with the book titled “Book of Lamentations by Monk Gregory of Narek from Van, Constantinople, 1850” which has been rescued during the deportation of 1915. The special guests of the museum, too, handed over their gifts. Katherine Yamada presented the museum with a glass bottle filled with rice equal to the daily ration defined by a Middle Eastern Orphanage for children the shortage of which forced the committee to refuse acceptance of thousand children. There is a note on the bottle – “Assistance to Armenian Orphans.” One of the guests, Yusi Byor, donated the diary and stamp of her grandmother, and Sosi Habeshyan presented Maria Jacobsen’s wallet and a photo where she is taking care of orphans.

The development of the new exhibition’s design project has started in 2011 together with the full renovation works of the Armenian Genocide Memorial and the genocide-institute’s main building, the improvement of Tsitsernakaberd Alley and the adjacent area and with the construction of the administrative section.

As a result, the museum’s exhibition area has been enlarged by two and a half times, comprising 2400 sq. m area, design solutions new to Armenia have been introduced and new technologies and approaches widely accepted in global museum practice have been used. The exhibition’s content solutions, text materials and explanatory notes are based on recent year academic and methodical achievements in genecology.

The permanent exhibition embraces thousand new-found materials acquired as a result of a seven-to-eight-year compilation work. Original copies of exclusive photos, books, documents etc. are also displayed.

The new exhibition area has 12 halls instead of the previous three ones. The exhibition is comprised of 52 main headings.

There are perfect conditions in the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute for the preservation of stock items which has allowed doubling the museum collection with more than 90000 original materials over the last few years.

The aforementioned works have been carried out within the frame of the Armenian Genocide Centennial events.

The Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex, the museum and the adjacent area have been fully renovated by the Tsitsernakaberd Charitable Foundation the board of trustees of which is chaired by RA President Serzh Sargsyan. The foundation is financed through donations of legal and physical entities.