The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey announced a major restoration and preservation project of the medieval Armenian city of Ani in northeastern Turkey. The conservation will focus on the strengthening the Ani Cathedral and the Church of the Holy Savior. The project will be undertaken by the Ministry of Turkish Culture in cooperation with the New York based World Monuments Fund (WMF).
At its height, Ani’s population numbered well over 100,000, including Armenians, Kurds, and Turks, and the city was filled with artistically and architecturally sophisticated buildings. However, by the mid-eleventh century, it had begun to decline, due to factors including internal strife, invasions by various groups, earthquakes, and the redirection of important trade routes away from the city. Gradually declining, by the seventeenth century, it was a small village and by the eighteenth century, it was in ruins and abandoned.
Ertugrul Gunay, Minister of Culture and Tourism in Turkey, stated, "This partnership with World Monuments Fund is a milestone in Turkey's efforts to conserve its many important cultural-heritage sites. Among these, Ani, which is of global significance, presents particularly complicated challenges."
The project follows the preservation programs recently completed by the Turkish government of the Churches of Tigran Honents and Manucehr, located right on the Turkish-Armenian border. Last year, Turkey finished the restoration of the historical Armenian church of Akdamar on Lame Van. A mass was held at Akdamar last fall, which was attended by thousands of Armenian worshippers from around the world and the Armenian community of Turkey, and was led by Archbishop Aram Ateshian of the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey.
According to the WMF, the Turkish government and WMF view the restorations not as "isolated conservation challenges, but as integral components of a larger cultural landscape that, as it becomes better known, will deepen public and scholarly understanding of the region’s rich heritage."
