Museums

Sardarapat Ethnographic Museum (Armavir)

The State Museum of Ethnography of Armenia or the Sardarapat Ethnographic Museum was founded in 1978 as the first specialized museum of ethnography in Armenia and a part of the Memorial Complex of Sardarapat. This foundation concluded the long period of accumulation of material articles of Armenian folk culture and traditions first by the members of the Armenian Ethnographical Society, established in Tiflis in 1906 and then followed by the Ethnographic Department of the Museum of History of Armenia in Yerevan, which inherited the role and possessions of the Society in the 1920s

Komitas Chamber Music Hall

Komitas Chamber Music Hall was opened in 1978 and was built according to sketches of the architect Kyurkchian. This cozy hall has 320 seats and accommodates chamber instrumental and choir music events. Concerts of organ music, meetings with composers, writers, and poets are organized at this favorite place of classic music lovers

Karen Demirjian Cultural Center

The Sports and Music Complex was opened in 1984. The building itself resembles the Sydney Opera House of Australia. Major sport championship events and concerts take place here. In September 2001, on the occasion of the 1700th anniversary of Armenia 's adoption of Christianity as the state religion, La Scala performers appeared on the SMC stage.

Arno Babajanayan Philharmonic Small Concert Hall

Arno Babajanayan Concert Hall is located in the heart of Yerevan on Abovian street . Composers, writers, poets meet in this hall, where are 300 seats. The building dates from the 19th century and was used as an educational institution until 1921, when it became the Small Philharmonic Concert Hall.

Alexander Spendiaryan Opera & Ballet National Academic Theatre

Alexander Spendiaryan National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet was opened in 1933 and since then has covered a successful road of brilliant achievements. The current repertoire of the theatre includes the world's best operas and ballets. The capacity of its halls is 1260 seats. The Statues of famous Armenian poet H. Tumanian and composer A. Spendiarian are situated in the square of the Theatre.

Museum of Folk-Art of Armenia

The Museum was founded on the basis of the permanent exhibition of the House of Folk Art for the preservation and furtherance of traditions of applied, decorative and fine arts within the Armenian folk art. The Museum houses about 12,000 exhibits (embroidery, silver jewelry, wooden, gold objects, ceramic ware, ornamented metalwork, carpets and rugs) which provide a fairly accurate idea about how well various branches of folk art are developed.

Aram Khachaturian Museum (Yerevan)

The Aram Khachaturian museum is located on Baghramyan street, two minutes walking distance from Moscovyan. The building has 5 high arches and houses a very complete collection of memories from the course of Khachaturian's illustrious career. Posters, costumes, notes and more fill room after room. You will also see where he lived, and can listen to many of his works in a well equipped listening room full of CD's.

Parajanov Museum (Yerevan)

The best museum in Yerevan is small and idiosyncratic, the would-be final home of famed Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990). Though being an ethnic Armenian (Parajanian), he was born in Tbilisi and spent most of his professional career in Kiev or Tbilisi. He won international fame with "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" and "The Color of Pomegranates," but his career was crippled by imprisonment (for homosexual liaisons) and denial of resources. After perestroika, Yerevan claimed him as its own, and built him a lovely house overlooking the Hrazdan gorge in an area of ersatz "ethnographic" buildings on the site of the former Dzoragyugh village (just behind and left of the upscale restaurant "Dzoragyugh," commonly but no longer accurately known as the "Mafia Restaurant" due to a leather-clad clientele, a mysteriously reliable electrical supply during the dark nights of 1993-95, and the occasional use of firearms). Alas, Parajanov died before the house was finished, but it became a lovely museum-memorial that also hosts dinners and receptions to raise funds. Parajanov's visual imagination and subversive humor are represented in series of compositions from broken glass and found objects. His figurines from prison-issue toilet brushes are proof that a totalitarian, materialist bureaucracy need not prevail. Look for "The Childhood of Genghis Khan" and Fellini's letter thanking him for the pair of socks.

Martiros Saryan House-Museum (Yerevan)

Martiros Saryan studied in Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was greatly influenced by Russian art, especially by such painters as Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. Even Saryan’s first canvases show his penchant for bright colours, his original vision of the world around him, expressiveness and unusual composition. His cycle of works painted after trips to Turkey, Iran and Egypt first brought him renown. In 1921, Saryan settled in Yerevan, and from then in Armenia, its countryside and people, became the main theme in his work. He is particularly famous for his landscapes, including the astonishing "Saryan’s Armenia", in which he celebrates the beauty of his land renewed. He also painted a fair number of portraits, which are remarkable for their psychological depth and philosophical approach. Saryan was also productive as a book illustrator and stage designer. The museum is open from 10:30 to 16:00 (to 15:00 on Wednesdays) every day except Thursday.

Matenadaran Manuscript Museum (Yerevan)

The Matenadaran (manuscript library) is the other world-class museum in Yerevan, not for its exhibitions per se, but rather for its status as the eternal (one hopes) repository for Armenia's medieval written culture. A vast gray basalt mass at the top of Mashtots Blvd. (built in 1945-57, architect M. Grigorian), the Matenadaran is guarded by the statue of primordial alphabet-giver S. Mashtots (ca. 400) and those of the other main figures of Armenian literature: Movses Khorenatsi (5th -- or maybe 8th -- century "father of Armenian history"); T'oros Roslin (13th c. manuscript illuminator in Hromkla/Rum Qalat near Edessa); Grigor Tatevatsi (theologian of Tatev Monastery, died 1409); Anania Shirakatsi (7th c. mathematician, studied in Trebizond, fixed the Armenian calendar); Mkhitar Gosh (died 1213, cleric and law codifier); and Frik (ca. 1230-1310, poet). There are khachkars and other ancient carved stones in the side porticos. The entry hall has a mosaic of the Battle of Avarayr, and the central stair frescos of Armenian history, all by H. Khachatrian. English-speaking guides are usually on deck. Beside the exhibit hall (and a small gift shop with excellent hand-painted reproductions of important manuscript miniatures), there are conservation rooms and shelf on shelf of storage (closed except to specialists with advance permission) for the 17000 manuscripts in a dozen languages. Cut deep in the hillside behind, and shielded by double steel blast doors, is a splendid marble tomb designed to preserve the collection against nuclear holocaust. Alas, the execution did not live up to the grandiosity of the conception -- water from a series of underground springs drips through the vaults, making them unusable until a few million dollars are found for a total reworking.

Children's Art Gallery (Yerevan)

Armenia has long been famed for its artists, sculptors and stone-carvers, and children are brought up to love art. For this reason the world’s first Children’s Picture Gallery (No. 13 on the corner of Abovyan and Sayat-Nova streets) is of interest. Over the years the gallery has developed into a true centre for developing an aesthetic sense in the rising generation. The spacious building includes exhibition halls, workshops, a concert ball and a library. There have been exhibitions of works by children from the Soviet republics, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Great Britain, France, the USA, Canada, India and Japan. Every year there are several one-man exhibitions of works by children aged from 3 to 16. By tradition, all the works exhibited remain the property of the gallery, which now has a collection of over 100,000 drawings. When the modern artist David Siqueiros visited the gallery he called it "a true festival for the children of the planet".

Genocide Museum (Yerevan)

Tsitsernakaberd Park, Yerevan. The Genocide Memorial and Museum at Tsitsernakaberd ("Swallow Castle") sits on the site of a Iron Age fortress, all above-ground trace of which seems to have disappeared. The Museum's testimony to the 1915 destruction of the Armenian communities of Eastern Anatolia is moving, and the monument itself is austere but powerful. The riven spire symbolizes the sundering of the Eastern and Western branches of the Armenian people. The view over the Ararat valley is striking.

Erebuni Fortress Museum (Yerevan)

The Urartian kingdom centered on the Lake Van in Eastern Turkey gave Yerevan its first major impetus. The Urartians built the citadel of Erebuni, on the hill of that name in SE Yerevan. (Take Tigran Mets Blvd from Republic Square, then turn left following the trolley tracks on the major street about half a km past the train station). A substantial museum at the base of the hill formerly known as Arin Berd houses many of the finds, including a few examples of Urartu's splendid metalwork. The citadel itself was founded by Argishti I, son of Menua, King of Urartu in the year 782, the first Urartian conquest on the East side of the Arax. We know this on the basis of a cuneiform inscription discovered built into the fortification wall by the gate, an inscription which reads roughly as follows: "By the greatness of the god Khaldi, Argishti son of Menua built this great fortress, named it Erebuni, to the power of Biainili and the terror of its enemies. Argishti says: the land was waste, I undertook here great works..." Armenian scientists argue that one can derive the name Yerevan from Erebuni by a series of simple phonological shifts, suggesting that modern Yerevan is the lineal descendant of this 8th c. B.C. citadel. In 1998, the Mayor of Yerevan arranged a festivity marking the 2780th birthday of Yerevan. A good time was had by all.

National History Museum (Yerevan)

Hanrapetutyan (Republic) Square, Yerevan. The State History Museum in Republic Square (formerly Lenin Square) is notable for the statues of Catherine the Great and Lenin squirreled away in a back courtyard ready for any change in the political winds. The important archaeological collection from Stone Age through Medieval periods is dark and almost unlabeled, but should not be missed. Note a Latin inscription from Ejmiatsin attesting to the presence of a Roman garrison. There are some interesting models of early modern Yerevan and other historical exhibits of interest to those comfortable in Armenian or Russian.

National Gallery of Armenia (Yerevan)

Hanrapetutyan (Republic) Square, Yerevan. The floors above the National History Museum contain the National Picture Gallery. Start by taking the elevator to the top, then descend through the huge collection of Russian, Armenian, and European works, some of the latter copies or else spoils of World War II divided among the various Soviet republics.