Mariam Sudukhian is a volunteer and likes hiking, spending time in mountains and taking photos. It is due to Mariam’s efforts that the recent problems with “the symphony of stones” of Garni have appeared in the focus of the attention of media.
“I took a foreigner there to show the canyon of Garni and saw some people taking out stones from there. I offered to take their photos, and they did not mind. They were even shaking hands and smiling. For me this canyon is a great monument created by the nature and it is very strange to me that some people are breaking stones there for construction purposes, that is why I wrote electronic letters to media companies and asked them to stop this vandalism. I don’t know whether we can save “the symphony of stones” or no. They may cheat us again this time too,” said Mariam in confusion.
“The symphony of stones” is very unique due to the fact that such composition straight right-angled stones is very rare in the nature. Two years ago the authorized bodies promised to include this territory in the administrative territory of Khosrov preserve to prevent such cases. Such robbery happened two years ago; however the authorized bodies have failed to take any actions to stop the violations. As far as the ministry of environment has not included this territory in the list of the areas protected by the government, the only protector of this territory is the community of Garni. The head of this community had to apply to the ministry and ask them to give a status of a monument to this miracle of the nature. Accordingly, there has been no proposal, thus there has been no prevention of violations. Certain high rank officials have decided to use the opportunity and build villas. The head of the national gallery Paravon Mirzoyan has not rejected the rumors that his villa has been built of the stones of Garni. There is nothing to refute here. Furthermore, the spokesman of deputy prime minister Hovik Abrahamyan has refuted the rumors that the latter builds his villa and an adjacent church from that stone.
Witnesses say that a number of trucks have taken stones to Artashat and even such a business has been launched there (one piece of stone is sold at 250-300 dram). Certainly, this huge rock that has been broken was not used for just a couple of villas. Even some new citizens of Garni, who have just recently bought lands there, are building their houses with such stones. The other citizens that have been residing in Garni for a long time have not even thought that they could build houses using those stones. Also a number of representatives of the civil society are demanding to punish the violators. It will be hard to punish the owners of those houses, who are using that stone in construction and at the best they may be obliged to pay to compensate the loss of the community, of course if they did not have a permission to cut those stones off. The mentioned territory is not included in the list of the territories protected by the state and does not have a status of a mine. However, human beings should understand that they should not ruin such miracles of the nature. On the other hand, may be those officials have lost the feeling of love to the beautiful or they love it so much, that they want to have it close. The head of Garni community, Ashot Vardanyan says that he had given permission to those people, who applied to him for cutting stones for cemeteries, but he does not know anything for this widespread robbery. There are small stone mines, which are open, however are not effective for using by the state, thus citizens may apply to the corresponding community heads and ask permission to extract stones from there on their own. If those people, who have certain privileges, have not applied to Ashot Vardanyan for permission, it does not mean that he doesn’t know about the fact that for over two years those people have been working in those areas and breaking rocks with big tools. In a word, the only person, who is responsible for this situation, is the head of that community even though he is not the only person that loses. However, always the real actors stay behind the scenes and people don’t know who they are. This is a perfect example how the good masters can pull chestnuts out of the fire with the hands of others and stay behind the scenes.