Exhibition in parliament showcases Armenian historical-cultural presence in Baku

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. An exhibition of photographs showing the historical Armenian presence and Armenian cultural-religious heritage in the Azeri city of Baku was opened today in a hall at the Armenian Parliament.

Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan, Members of Parliament, foreign officials and others attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition titled Armenian Historical-Cultural Trace in Baku.

MP Vilen Gabrielyan, the Chairman of the Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan Pan-Armenian Union, said in his speech that his organization will consistently struggle to restore the rights of the persons who were forcibly displaced from Azerbaijan.

The total number of Armenians who were forcibly displaced from Azerbaijan during various times throughout history is over 800,000, Gabrielyan said. More than 500,000 of the forcibly displaced Armenians were born in Azerbaijan.

In his speech, Gabrielyan said that the forced displacement of Armenians from Azerbaijan began on February 27, 1988 during the Sumgait pogrom, and continued in Baku and other Azeri towns. The MP said that without any proper international assessment, the aggressive and ethnophobicpolicy of the Azeri authorities has continued to present times, eventually leading to the forced displacement of over 100,000 Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan Pan-Armenian Union Deputy Chairman Mariam Avagyan said that Baku was a cultural city, and “one of the pillars of the culture was the Armenian architectural mind”.

The exhibition displays photos of buildings designed by Armenian architects and engineers, the heritage of Armenian magnates and Armenian religious and historical-cultural heritage in Baku that have been either destroyed or misrepresented by Azeri authorities in an effort to falsify history and erase Armenian traces.