A group of Gyumri artists have come out to question the government's decision to hand over two murals by the noted artists Minas Avetisyan to the Armenia International Airlines Company on condition that they be restored and installed at the Erebuni Airport in Yerevan.

They say they will picket in front of the Gyumri factories where the murals are located to prevent a group from Yerevan arriving on May 4 from removing the art works and taking them back to the capital.

"Who said that relocating Minas' murals to the airport is the best decision possible?" asked the angry group of artists at a roundtable discussion today in Yerevan.

The murals in question had been commissioned back in the 1970s by the directors of a nuber of factories in town once called Leninakan.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union, these factories were abandoned and the murals suffered as a result.

In 1990, the Leninakan City Soviet called in a group of Bulgarian experts to restore one of the murals. It was then installed in the Gyumri V. Ajemyan State Dramtic Theater.

In 2010, the Armenian government restored the two murals with funds from the national budget and had them transferred to the Government Building in Yerevan.

"We should have opposed the move back then," said Garik Manukyan, President of the Gyumri branch of the Painters' Union of Armenia. "They should have been restored and kept in Gyumri. What average citizen has the chance to go to the Government Building and look up in amazement at Minas' murals?"

Artashes Karapetyan, Director of the Gyumri Municipality's Department of Culture and Youth Affairs, noted that in Europe such art treasures are maintained in secondary cities specifically so that tourists go and visit them.

"I am talking about the development of the Marzes. But, they are taking everything to Yerevan. We won't let them," declared Mr. Karapetyan.