Treasures of Western Armenia

Treasures of Western Armenia are exhibited in Russian Ethnographic Museum of Saint Petersburg.

The artifacts of the Alexander Miller's collection of 1916 are exhibited and opened to the public for the first time. High officials from both countries including the Chief of Staff of Armenia’s President and Chief Coordinator of Events Dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Mr. Vigen Sargsyan, took part.

 

They are a microcosmic representation of the ordinary Western Armenian life, which is now extinct. "I myself am a descendent of Armenian Genocide survivors and so are, in many ways, the artifacts we see exhibited today in this museum. Unfortunately, most of our treasures perished together with their owners and few only survived", -said  Pierre Akkellian, the President of Armenian Jewellers Foundation at the opening ceremony.

The exhibited items  are also  ilusstrated in a the joint publication  of the Russian Museum of Ethnography, one of the largest in the world,  formally inaugurated on April 27, 2015, in Saint Petersburg. The Expedition’s team meticulously documented the daily lives of ordinary Armenians, especially in the region of Van, through their material culture. This collection, which was literally stored away for almost 100 years, now affords us a kaleidoscopic view of the cultural heritage of the indigenous people of Western Armenia, who developed the crafts of their civilization over several millennia.