YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The number of people visiting the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts – Matenadaran, in 2017 was more than 100.000. Last year this number was 93.000, and in 2015 it was 87.000.

Acting director of the Matenadaran Vahan Ter-Ghevondyan told Armenpress that every year the number of people increases by several thousand.

“This year the tourism season started earlier. Probably, it will continue until the end of the year. Here I want to state two factors. The first one is that the number of people visiting Armenia increased, and the second factor is that we had several new exhibitions during the year”, Vahan Ter-Ghevondyan said. The exhibition halls this year were upgraded and new exhibitions were held.

An exhibition was held in Amsterdam dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the Armenian edition of the Bible published by Voskan Yerevantsi. Ancient, valuable books were presented. This year another exhibition was held dedicated to the Lazarian family. It especially created a great interest among Russian visitors. This year marked the 300th anniversary of the Mekhitarist Congregation of Venice. On this occasion an exhibition was organized in the Matenadaran during which ancient books, valuable photos were displayed.

“Most of people visiting Matenadaran are from Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Poland and Iran. There are also visitors from Philippines, Korea and China. There are tour guides speaking in 7 languages in the Matenadaran”, he said.

The collection of manuscripts is more than 20.000. 17.000 of them are in Armenian, and the rest in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, Greek and etc.