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Artsakh State historical Museum of Local Lore annually has from 13.000 to 18.000 visitors including a growing number of foreigners, reports the official website of “Service for the Protection of Historical Environment and Cultural Museum Reservations” NCSO.

Director of the Museum, Melanya Balayan stated that despite the accommodation difficulties to present properly the results of the excavations carried out in Artsakh, there’s no shortage of visitors.

“If at the end of the ‘90s or the beginning of the 2000s the visitors of the museum were mainly from Armenian Diaspora, nowadays many foreigners are included in the tourist groups. According to recently established tradition, Defense Army recruits visit our museum. Armenian tourists have also become frequent visitors. It is significant, that tour operators from Europe visit and get acquainted to the museum and later include it in their tour packages,” Balayan said.

As informs Karabakh Travel, Artsakh State Historical Museum of Local Lore is the only historical-cultural hearth where the history of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) from the ancient times till our days is presented. From the beginning of its foundation, 1939, in spite of the anti-Armenian policy of Soviet Azerbaijan and the years of war, unleashed by it in Artsakh, the museum has managed to gather and save all the spiritual and material values of Artsakh people. The fund of Artsakh State Historical Museum of Local Lore counts more than 50 thousand historical-cultural artefacts, telling about the origins of birth and development of the civilization at the territory of modern Artsakh. Today more than ever the museum has the opportunity to enrich its funds effectively due to the archaeological excavations conducted in Artsakh and archaeological findings.

The museum exhibition halls begin with the show-cases demonstrating models of Artsakh natural landscape.
Further is the hall of archaeology. Here, particularly, models of petrifications, early implements of Stone Age, different bronze subjects (adornments, weapon, utensils), preserved from times of the state of Urartu, amazing ornamented ceramic vessels, Armenian, Roman, Persian, Arabian silver and copper coins, and so on.
The hall of Middle Ages begins with a photo and a map attached to it of one of the first Artsakh churches (4thc.) – Amaras monastery, founded by Gregory the Illuminator, the first Armenian Christian philosopher. Here the documentary evidence of his propagations in South Caucasus are presented.

The department of ethnography where the demonstration begins with the show-case of family life of the ancient Artsakhian (grandmother weaves thread with distaff, and grandfather sews trekhs (footwear of leather made by him) arouses special interest. The old carpet weaving loom and the samples of Artsakh weaving art – carpets of XVIII-XX cc. are also presented. In the IX century, the centre of the Armenian national culture was Shoushi city; of it the old gospel, printed books and photos tell.

The halls of modern history are rich in documentary artefacts where exhibits telling about the national liberation fight of Artsakhian-Armenians against Azerbaijan in 1918-1921 are demonstrated. Here the map of Armenia of 1926 is presented, fulfilled on the basis of the union treaty of the 10th of August, 1920, as well as documents confirming the tragic events in Shoushi on the 23d of March, 1920, and telling about the forced annexation of Nagorno Karabakh to the Soviet Azerbaijan.

The last halls of the museum tell about the modern movement of Artsakh, national-liberation war, about the solidarity of all Armenian nation in post-war period with the aims of consolidation of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh.

“Every year, on May 18, the International Museum Day, we try to organize special exhibitions. Last year’s “Genocide after the Genocide” exhibition was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide telling about the cultural genocide in Western Armenia. We’re planning to organize “Artsakhian embroidery” in 2016 dedicated to the works created in different periods of time by Armenian women,” said the director of the museum.

The museum also participates in many international conferences, exhibitions. The carpets of the museum were exhibited in many cities of France in 1997 and in Vienna, 2014 and became a topic of discussions for many international conferences.

There was a need to build a museum for the archaeological findings of German archaeologist Hummel in 1938-1939. Artsakh State historical Museum of Local Lore was built in 1939. The present building was built in mid-1950s.

The credits for photographs belong to “Service for the Protection of Historical Environment and Cultural Museum Reservations” NCSO.