Two days with Samvel Karapetyan.

During the “SOS Culture” summer camp excursions while Samvel Karapetyan was accompanying participants and telling them about each cultural monument, some of them decided to have a small interview with him, with the help of journalism teacher Karine. The purpose was to talk about the situation of cultural monuments in Armenia.

He noted with sadness. “Armenians do not really care about their cultural heritage. It has different reasons. First, what I see is the lack of respect, lack towards monuments, towards our ancestors and toward nature. Unfortunately, we see it everywhere and it stopped make us being surprised. Garbage views have become normal for us and this is the most dangerous.

Talking about the summer camp, about future generations and about its role Mr. Karapetyan said. “I consider this very important, when these young people had the opportunity to visit ancient cultural monuments. It is a step to explore and learn about the country, which means to love it. From Soviet times we were used to love our mother land only with slogans, which meant we had to love it. These are futile words. No one told us to recognize our motherland. Actually this is the key to love the motherland. When we recognize our country, it is inevitable to love. When we love we will be soldiers of our motherland when necessary".

During the conversation Samvel Karapetyan added that even during peacetime we need soldiers to fight against disrespect towards our culture. He noted that the people who are responsible for our educational system did not do anything to prevent the development of the current situation with its negative consequences. Especially history and geography teachers should organize hiking tours for students to be able to explore their country. According to him, each person should watch the sunset and sunrise of his/her motherland, hear the voice of nature. Otherwise we will migrate as we do nowadays.

Mr. Karapetyan concluded the conversation with following statement. “I am sure that these young people will remember this day. When they grow up, I guess, they would like to bring their children here. This is how we pass knowledge to the next generation, this is the commitment to explore and learn about our motherland. I hope we will survive as a nation and as a state”.