YEREVAN, JULY 19, ARMENPRESS. Byurakan Observatory proposes to create a center for visits which will include a virtual museum of astronomical history, a hall for public lectures, improvement of the road leading to the telescope, as well as its adjacent areas, reports Armenpress.

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan today visited the Byurakan Observatory aimed at getting introduced on the idea to establish such center.

Director of the Observatory Areg Mikayelyan said the project will be ready in the upcoming two weeks.  

“The visit of the President is very important since only the visit to the scientific center is important in itself in terms of the public attitude towards the field. Science requires much more serious investments at all directions, such as scientific research, technical, preparation of cadres and etc. It is being carried out by various means, and in this case we have proposed a program which is based on the so-called scientific tourism idea one of the most important points of which can be the Byurakan Observatory. The talk is about to make the visit to scientific places interesting for tourists: those are both the contemporary scientific structures, and the historical sites, and the science museums and medieval universities”, the Director said.

According to Areg Mikayelyan, there are numerous such kind of places, and it is necessary to coordinate the visits to such places for tourism directions.

“Armenia has huge wealth in this field, however, it is necessary to coordinate and examine this. Today the Byurakan Observatory hosts 5.000 visitors annually which is very low since the number could be ten times more. The main problem is linked with improvement of domestic conditions. If we make a little investment and create more comfortable conditions for tourists, school-children, as well as the remaining visitors, the flow will increase, the tour companies will include Byurakan in their packages”, he said, adding that the President’s attitude was positive, although he proposed to discuss the project after developing it in-detail and presenting with respective calculations.