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Tourism: Paestum celebrates Armenia, loved by Italians

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  • Tourism: Paestum celebrates Armenia, loved by Italians

    ANSA Med, Italy
    Nov 16 2012

    Tourism: Paestum celebrates Armenia, loved by Italians

    Deputy culture minister at Borsa Med, protect heritage

    16 November, 15:47


    (ANSAmed) - Paestum (Salerno), November 16 - Armenia's history evokes
    the myth of the mooring of Noah's arch on Mount Ararat - now on
    Turkish land but visible from the border - and the passage of Marco
    Polo along his voyage to the Far East. But Armenia also has a rich
    historic and archaeological heritage. A heritage 'we must treat with
    great caution and limit the amount of excavation sites to leave them
    to the next generation who will have better scientific and
    technological know-how', said the country's deputy culture minister
    Arev Samuelyan. 'The priority is to protect the heritage of the past'.

    Sustainable tourism is at the centre of debates at the Borsa
    Mediterranea del Turismo Archeologico - an event focusing on
    archaeological tourism ongoing in Paestum in southern Italy. The risks
    involved in a bad management of its heritage are clear to the Armenian
    government, said the deputy minister: 'This is our asset, we have to
    find the best way to preserve it and present it to visitors'.

    Armenia, the guest country of the 15th edition of the Borsa, is a
    young republic created in 1991 after 70 years of Soviet rule, and on
    its memory weigh the massacres of Armenians in Anatolia between 1915
    and 1918 inside the former Ottoman empire.

    Those who were able to escape fled to the Middle East, Europe or North
    America, where the 4th generation of the Diaspora now lives -
    totalling almost ten million people worldwide compared to the three
    million living in the Republic of Armenia. And the offspring of the
    Diaspora constitute the great majority of visitors who travel to
    admire the country's beautiful landscape, its thousands of stone
    crosses (Khachkar), mountain churches and monasteries. The Armenian
    people were the first to convert to Christianity and make it the state
    religion (in 301 AD, 79 years before the Roman empire), said
    Samuelyan.

    However, the first Christian king of the country was the one to save
    the pagan temple of Garni to make it a summer residence for his wife.
    And Pagan rites are still being performed like one of purification
    during the Vardavar summer festival. 'This is a good lesson of
    tolerance for all of us as the capital Yerevan has been a crossroads
    of civilizations for centuries', said the deputy minister.

    Yerevan is one of the oldest cities worldwide and a modern capital
    today visited by 12,000 Italians every year, concluded the vice
    minister. Two airlines connect Italy to the country - Alitalia, which
    will start operating two connections a week in December and Armavia
    which will resume flights to Rome, Venice and Milan in March.
    (ANSAmed)


    http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/nations/italy/2012/11/16/Tourism-Paestum-celebrates-Armenia-loved-Italians_7807695.html

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