Eighth wonders of the world

15/12/2006

The recent times the government is busy with discussing the issue of building a monument in the place of Lenin’s monument in the Republic Square of Yerevan. For this purpose many projects have been presented to the governmental commission, most of which are eastern-style projects and would look better in Turkmenistan or somewhere in the neighboring countries, but not in Armenia. We wander why the government wants to build something in the republic square since they don’t have to do that and it is not an essential issue. There was no need to build the two monuments of “Tigran the Great” and Noah in the yard of the president’s office either. The problem is not whether they should build such monuments or not, but the fact that we have always said that we are an ancient nation that is famous with its architecture, indeed we managed to collapse the “Youth Palace” that was a unique building. Moreover, after the building had been collapsed Anahit Tarkhanyan compared it with the masterpieces of Saryan and Surenyants. She even said that “one couldn’t edit the masterpieces of Shestakovich and add some other notes”. Besides this brilliant idea Tarkhanyan also said that we should build a monument in the Republic Square. She thinks that collapsing the stand of Lenin’s monument was a big crime and compares the stand with church. “Why do the Armenian architects call their works masterpieces and expect that people would accept those works? Furthermore, they insist on placing their “masterpieces” in important places of the city and include them in the list of protected monuments, thus making their works safe. They always think that they have created eighth wonders. Indeed we can’t say that our architecture is on a higher level”, said Anahit Tarkhanyan.