Culture

Museums
Matenadaran, Institute of Ancient Manuscripts

aMatenadaran is one of the oldest and richest book-depositories in the world. Its acollection of about 1700 manuscripts includes almost all the areas of ancient aand medieval Armenian culture and sciences-history, geography, grammar, aphilosophy, law, medicine, mathematics-cosmography, theory of calendar, aalchemy-chemistry, translation, literature, chronology, art history, miniature, amusic and theatre, as well as manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Greek, Syrian and aLatin. In this center of cultural heritage many originals, lost in their mother alanguages and known only of their Armenian translations, have been saved from loss.
Museum-Institute of Armenian Genocide
The objective of this institution is to collect, research, publish, preserve and aexhibit documents, photos, publications related to the Armenian Genocide, awhich was prepared and perpetrated in Turkey in 1915-1923 by the ruling clique. aDocuments, authentic photos and the Genocide victims' personal effects and aencased relics, which illustrate the details of some of the most horrid events of athe 20th century and reflect the attitude of the world public to the Armenian Genocide, are on permanent display.
State History Museum of Armenian

aThe museum has the collections of the Armenian Museum of Nor Nakhidjevan, aMoscow Lazarian Seminary, Ani Archive, State Museum of Etchmiadzin. Materials acollected in various institutions and organizations as well as purchased from aindividuals were also added to the collection. The Museum had Archeology, aEthnography, Historiography and Fine Arts sections.

Mother Armenia Military Museum

aFounded in 1970 as the Museum of History of the Great Patriotic War (World aWar II), it was built in 1950 by the master architect R. Israelian. Its general aplan basically replicates that of St. Hripsime Cathedral. The Statue of Mother aArmenia sits on top of the structure. A cenotaph of the Unknown Soldier is asituated not far from the museum.
The Museum has about 30,000 exhibits, including photos, documents, materials related to the Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) war (second floor display), as well as documents, photos related to the protection of the Armenian homeland. The first-floor showrooms contain materials about Armenian sacrifices in the Great Patriotic war, as well as personal belongings of Marshal Hovhannes Baghramian.
Concert halls
Alexander Spendiaryan Opera & Ballet national academic theatre

Alexander Spendiaryan National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet was aopened in 1933 and since then has covered a successful road of brilliant aachievements. The current repertoire of the theatre includes the world's best aoperas and ballets.The statues of famous Armenian poet H. Tumanian and acomposer A. Spendiarian are situated in the square of the Theatre

Aram Khachaturian concert hall

The Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall is one of the architectural pearls of Yerevan. aIn front of the concert hall stands a monument of Aram Khachaturian (architect: aYu.Petrossian), erected in 1999 on the occasion of his birthday (June 6). This aaccolade to the great composer completes the monumental panorama of the aadjoining Theatrical Square.

Art Galleries
National Gallery of Armenia

aThe Art Gallery of Armenia, opened in 1921, is one of the richest museums of athe world. Its extensive collection of Armenian, Western European, Russian Art anumbers over 19000 items. Hermitage (Saint Petersburg) and the Tretyakov aGallery (Moscow) transferred valuable pictures to the newly founded museum in a1922.The Echmiadzin Monastery presented the Museum with a collection of aArmenian art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The collection of Lazarev family, who founded the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages in Moscow, enriched the Museum with Armenian and Russian paintings. A special section of the museum is devoted to the art of Armenian artists living abroad. Their works, bearing the imprint of cultural traditions of the countries where they happen to live, are imbued with a nostalgic longing of the artists for their motherland.

Naregatsi Art Institute

aThe Naregatsi Art Institute, incorporated in 2002, is a non-profit organization adedicated to serving Armenia's existing cultural heritage through supporting aArmenian contemporary artists and creating a forum in which the spirit of art aand the common voice can resonate freely. Naregatsi Art Institute seeks to aenrich the understanding and the exposure of Armenian art today, the ancestry afrom which this art has stemmed, and the future which creativity, social consciousness, and collaborative energy will lead to.