YEREVAN. – Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke about the decision to allocate 270 million drams to the New Year celebrations.

During the government's meeting on Thursday, he said the government's task was to change the atmosphere of the festivities.

“During the last few years people preferred celebrating New Year abroad, because conditions for celebrating New Year in Armenia created certain problems,” he said when referring to Armenians’ tradition to host too many guests and treat them to numerous dishes during the first days of the New Year.  

Pashinyan said the government wanted to make New Year a public holiday, and created a platform for this to make it more about celebrations rather than about cooking and eating.

The Pm emphasized that many families face the problem of how to spend their money and offered to buy tickets for theater or other performances as a Christmas and New Year gift to their families and friends.