Scores of youth today headed to Armenia’s historical Garni site to remove construction material previously delivered in order to build a café.

The youth said they would not allow such desecration of such a unique and important historical-cultural complex.

The activists, in an act of defiance against the planned for café, shoveled the gravel and sand in bags and dumped the sacks in front of the ministry building in Yerevan/

Garni police tried to intervene, labeling the action illegal. The determined activists responded that it was the ministry who was flouting the law.

Local workers at the site (officially called the Garni Historical and Cultural Museum Reserve) called for calm and told the activists that an official from the ministry had visited the site the other day and had met with police and the Garni mayor.

The meeting resulted in a five day ban on all construction so that the café issue could be reviewed.  

An agency attached to the ministry that runs the site had given the go-ahead for the eatery in the shadow of the pre-Christian Garni temple, arguing that such a convenience would boost tourism and that revenues would go towards making much needed improvements.

The sign in the top photo reads: We are the owners of our village.

The sign on the dump truck reads: Don’t desecrate Armenia’s sacred sites.

Photos: Sara Petrosyan and Hayk Davtyan