
What Actually Was Destroyed During the July Fire at the Martiros Saryan House-Museum
Anna Babajanyan
On July 19, a fire broke out at the Martiros Saryan House-Museum in Yerevan.
Fire crews responded and extinguished the blaze a half hour later. They stated that only a few household items were destroyed on the first floor.
The Ministry of Culture also issued a statement that nothing of value had been burned.
Even Museum Director Rouzan Saryan (a granddaughter of the famous painter) was quick to point out that none of the master’s canvases or other items had been damaged.
But do their statements correspond to what really happened? It appears not.
Hetq has learnt that a few days before the fire, Araxi Saryan (the painter’s daughter-in-law) requested that she bring a large container through the first floor living quarters so that she could rummage through the painter’s various items located there.
That container was destroyed in the fire.
In a conversation with Hetq, the museum’s chief archivist Sofia Saryan verified that other items had been destroyed as well, and that not one container, but six had been destroyed.
“I had brought those trunks to the first floor. They contained photos of Saryan’s works as well as film negatives of the painter’s personal photos,” Sofia Saryan said.
She stressed the importance of the photos for the preparation of a Saryan catalog, and that they comprised the bulk of the catalog’s photographs. They document the existence of this or that Saryan work, even those works whose current location is unknown or which no longer exist.
The archivist says that the information has nevertheless been preserved and that the lists of works have been registered. As regards the negatives, they have been digitized and most are on display at the museum. When we asked how many photos and negatives had been destroyed, Sofia Saryan had trouble answering. She only noted that the trunks had been full.
Hetq’s source at the Ministry of Culture claims that the trunks contained much more interesting items; particularly documents, manuscripts, and other photos, films, and other cultural items.
Sofia Saryan denied this to be the case, pointing out that she had sorted out the materials in the trunk for later work.
If we accept, for a moment, that the trunks did not contain such valuable items, we can only assume that all six merely contained photos and film negatives already preserved. Thus, the claim that further work was to be done on them at a later date doesn’t ring true.
Our same source says that these valuable items had been stored in the first floor hallway for days and that they were all destroyed in the fire. The source argues that the museum management is now attempting to conceal the contents of the trunks, just like it was trying to cover up the fact that they never existed in the first place.
When we visited the museum, we saw a number of trunks lined up along the first floor hallway. When we asked what they contained, management tried to avoid answering. They even attempted to keep us away from photographing them.
We should add that even during the construction now going on at the museum, many of its valuable items haven’t been relocated. You would think this would be the first step management would take to safeguard them.
This runs counter to an earlier claim by museum director Rouzan Saryan that the painter’s canvases and other valuables had been removed for safekeeping.
We wrote to the Ministry of Culture based on the claims of the museum’s chief archivist. We inquired if the ministry was aware that the above photos and negatives had been destroyed, and if so, why did they conceal this news? If not, what steps were they planning to get to the truth and prevent such losses in the future? In addition, who would be held accountable for the loss?
We also asked what the steps the ministry has to date taken to digitize the Saryan Museum’s archives.
The Ministry merely responded that trunks contained personal household items of the Saryan family and black and white photos of the painters works which have already appeared in numerous catalogs and albums. They also claimed that all of Saryan’s works in the museum have been digitized.
In essence the ministry and the museum’s chief archivist are now rejecting the early claims of the emergency services and the ministry itself that only household items had been destroyed.
It now appears that the Ministry of Culture knew all along that other items had also been burnt.
The Ministry never answered our question as to why they saw fit to conceal this truth, as well as our other questions regarding future prevention and culpability.
As to the fire itself, we should note the museum’s fire extinguishing system mysteriously never kicked in. Sofia Saryan didn’t deny this fact. What she did say, as a justification, was that the fire was caused by an electrical short and that all systems were down at the time. “The maintenance systems were being changed and the wires were overloaded,” she claimed.
We then contacted the Ministry of Emergency Affairs, asking why they had misconstrued the facts and why the museum’s anti-fire system failed. They responded that an investigation had never revealed such trunks (naturally, since they were destroyed-A.B.) and that museum management and eye witnesses never mentioned their existence in their statements.
“We have nothing to hide. Our inspector knew nothing about any trunks,” Sergey Hayrapetyan, Chief of the Fire and Technical Safety Inspectorate at the ministry, told Hetq.
“So the museum perhaps concealed this information from you?” we asked Hayrapetyan. “Of course,” he replied. “Perhaps they hide it from us as well.”
Hayrapetyan added that fire detectors hadn’t been installed on the first floor and that the fire never reached the second floor to set off the system. He noted that all detectors must be checked yearly and that it is the responsibility of museum management to do so.
P.S. Renovation work at the Saryan House-Museum will continue for another year. In the meantime, the painter’s work will be on display at the National Gallery and the Matenadaran. The English version of the new Martiros Saryan House-Museum website is now under construction.
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