Lomography

Karen Demirchian Sport & Concert Complex, Yerevan
written by wil6ka on January 22nd, 2009 , 2 comments (1 vote)

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Well this is a story how to find out, where you have actually been. I don’t know, if this sounds familiar to you, but sometimes I snap my brain away. I come from an exotic country with dozen of films and looking at the pictures I don’t recall the name of the thing photographed. After I have been to the Armenian capital Yerevan I found myself in that spot.

Adjacently the writing on the buildings is incomprehensable and the webpages on the sights are very limited. To cut it short it took me months to find out that the Karen Demirchian Sport&Concert Complex is what it is. But today I really wanted to know and finally, after downloading a map I came closer to the result. You might understand my excitement looking at the sight. This palace is one prime example of the fantastically star-trekilly architecture made in Armenia. Architects from theis former Soviet republic where the best of there time, In the whole former Soviet Union you see the traces of the futuristic visions.

The Sport Complex, which is for me a palace of the people, its on a hill in the massive Tzitzernakaberd Park, which is just southwest within Yerevan. It must be one of the highest points of the city, you have a great view on everything and you see it fron everywhere in town. While I was there in 2007 it was reconstructed and I wasn’t let in (with the impressive question : “Kto wui: Who are you?”), but I measured every bit of it from the outside. In fact – it is the place I want to live in – and if the Armenian government is liberalizing the real estate market I am certainly in.

Eventually Karen Demirchian was leading Soviet Armenia from1974 until 1988. After Independence he became a successful businessman returning to politics in 1998. He won the election with a great majority of seats (becoming the speaker of the parliament) but was killed in an assasination within the parliament shortly after. And if that spectacular place wouldn’t hold his name, I would have never known about him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerevan
http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Karen_Demirchyan
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/stone1.html