The lack of funding doesn’t spark young Armenians’ interest in working at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute. This is what Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Harutyun Marutyan told reporters today.

According to him, young Armenians have always been interested in research on the Armenian Genocide, but when it comes time to work as professionals, they raise the issue of funding and salaries. “The average salaries of the Museum-Institute’s employees have remained the same for a decade. The lack of funding has become the reason for the few number of employees. The Museum-Institute has 100 ha of lands that only a few people take care of, and this is also due to funding,” he stated.

The director also emphasized that, in spite of this, there is also some progress, that is, the Museum-Institute doesn’t have any more debts. He recalled that the entrance to the Museum-Institute is free, and the only source of income are the paid excursions (AMD 2,500 for Armenian language and AMD 5,000 for foreign language). “Despite the hardships, there is great interest in the Museum-Institute, and evidence of this is the fact that there were 6,000 more visitors in 2019 than there were in 2018. There are also many people visiting the Museum-Institute’s official website, which always needs to be updated. This year, there were more than 3,000,000 visitors,” he concluded.