When was the Gandzasar gate built?
Members of the "We Won't Stay Silent" youth initiative have given clarifications to Moscow-based Armenian businessman, benefactor Levon Hayrapetyan.
After the uproar over placing tiles on the gate surrounding the 13th century Gandzasar monastic complex in Artsakh, Head of the Division for Monument Preservation and Research of the Department of Tourism under the NKR Government Slava Sargsyan gave clarifications in the presses. According to him, businessman Levon Hayrapetyan came up with the idea of placing tiles on the centuries-old gate.
According to the initiative members' press release, during a telephone conversation yesterday, Levon Hayrapetyan said that the gate surrounding Gandzasar was not built in the 13th century, but the 1980s. According to Hayrapetyan, due to its low quality, the gate has started collapsing, and to prevent that he has decided to place tiles that are from the same mine the rocks of which were used to build the Gandzasar monastic complex in the 13th century.
"It is to the least doubtufl that the head of the division for monument preservation and research under the NKR government has confirmed several times that the gate was built in the 13th century, and instead of informing that the structure was built thirty years ago and silencing the uproar, Prelate of the Artsakh Diocese, Archbishop Parkev Martirosyan stayed neutral. This, according to rumors in Artsakh, is due to the discrepancies between him and Levon Hayrapetyan," as stated in the press release.
