After the Indoor Market scandal, Culture Minister Hasmik Poghosyan should have tendered her resignation, architect Sashur Kalashyan said in a press conference on 6 March.
To recall, the owner of the Indoor Market is Samvel Aleksanyan, a parliamentarian-oligarch. The historical monument of Yerevan has been turned into a supermarket although the Municipality, the Culture Ministry and Urban Development Minister claimed they did not approve the project.
Kalashyan thinks the minister has embarrassed herself failing to stop the project. "She should have left her post after that scandal, which would become "a slap in the face" of the government," he said. As for the plans to build a cafe near the Garni Medieval Temple, Kalashyan said: "If the minister really cared for the Armenian culture and history, she would dissolve the expert commission that approved that project. Architecture resembles the nation, he said, meanwhile business in the country has 'swallowed' the monuments of culture and history in the country. The Youth Chamber, the old building of Zvartnots Airport, the summer hall of Moscow Cinema and the building of Rossia Cinema were left out of the list of the state monuments over the years of Armenia's independence.
In fact, the Youth Chamber has been brought down, and the Moscow Cinema Summer Hall was on the verge of demolition.
As regards possible demolition of the old building of Zvartnots Airport, Kalashyan recalled that some 1.5 month ago, a group of architects and experts addressed the president for preservation of the given monument of the Soviet post-modernism. The architect promised to fight till the end to save the building.
To recall, Armenia International Airports CJSC has disseminate a statement wherein it refuses to spend money on preservation of the old building that "does not meet the modern standards of air navigation."