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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
Next in line for destruction is Talin's famous 7th-century domed basilica. This time, rather than criminal oligarchs paying for the "restoration", it is fanatical Christians, a pair of wealthy fundamentalist Christians from America who have bought their way into influence inside the Armenian Church.
Originally posted by bell-the-cat
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Only the core of the Dashtadem castle is from the 10th century, from the Ani kingdom period. That part is a very small, rectangular, keep-like structure which had an upper-level entrance and an enormous stone-vaulted cellar. There was probably an outer line of low walls to protect this keep - and the surviving outer walls of the castle are probably them (the north wall of the church forms part of the wall). The inscription is not Mongol, it is dated 1174 and refers to a Shaddadid ruler of Ani. The Shaddadids enlarged the basic fortress by adding a series of angular and half-cylinder towers to the keep, literally encasing the old keep inside them. Dashtadem was a small town in the 18th-century and, as you correctly said, the outer stone walls with a series of low cylindrical and rectangular towers were built at that time, by the Khans of Yerevan.
The damage and destruction caused by the recent rebuilding work looks to be extensive and is probably irreversible. The work displays a very low quality workmanship (i.e., modern cement used, new masonry with vertical proportions unlike the horizontal proportions of the original masonry). The whole project runs completely against modern conservation practices that insist that nothing unnecessary is added to original structures, that a monument's historical integrity should be preserved, and that any interventions should be reversable. The surviving walls were in no danger of collapsing – none of the cracks were structurally significant and all the foundations were intact and strong. The building work has doubled the height of the surviving Shaddadid-period walls (dwarfing and hiding the original keep) – there is no archaeological evidence to show they once looked like this. Since the rebuilders did not have a clue as to how tall the walls once were, or what the top of the walls once looked like, the new construction simply stops at a random and uniform height (just like the much-condemned Turkish “reconstruction” of the Ani walls). This extensive rebuilding goes completely against the core aims of modern conservation – by altering and by removing evidence of the structure’s chronology and history, the rebuilding work has destroyed the value of the site as an historic monument. I also expect that the massive additional weight of all that new masonry will have damaged the structural integrity of the surviving original masonry, placing the whole monument at risk of collapse (which is what has happened at Ani). The outer walls have also been inflicted by extensive rebuilding, ruining their historical value. And then there is the compulsory rebuilt church to ease the corrupt benefactor’s entrance into heaven. The loss of the site’s archaeology has also probably been extensive: large areas of earth seem to have been cleared away and I don’t remember hearing of any actual archaeological investigations to accompany the building work. And a place that was once beautiful is now ugly - it all just looks ugly.
I was assuming that the aim of the destruction was a simple a-la-Turca method of transferring money from the state to the local Talin mafia by using Dashtadem as a conduit and a front. For that to work, the project has to be made as large as possible (to artificially inflate the budget to make sure there would be plenty of money in it) and the actual work done needs to be done as cheaply as possible (to maximise the amount of money that can be diverted into the pockets of the criminals) - this is the way it worked in Turkey at Ani and at Aghtamar. If my assumption is wrong, then it just shows how backward conservation practices have become in Armenia and how the ego and wealth of a single person can enable that person to do whatever he likes. In most developed countries, the destruction inflicted on Dashtadem would have been illegal and a major criminal act. But most developed countries have laws in place to protect their important historical monuments – so it would not have got to the stage of being a crime - the work would never have even started. But it seems that in today’s Armenia, the people who should understand how to conserve monuments know nothing about conservation, and those who should be upholding protection laws are the ones breaking them.
The damage and destruction caused by the recent rebuilding work looks to be extensive and is probably irreversible. The work displays a very low quality workmanship (i.e., modern cement used, new masonry with vertical proportions unlike the horizontal proportions of the original masonry). The whole project runs completely against modern conservation practices that insist that nothing unnecessary is added to original structures, that a monument's historical integrity should be preserved, and that any interventions should be reversable. The surviving walls were in no danger of collapsing – none of the cracks were structurally significant and all the foundations were intact and strong. The building work has doubled the height of the surviving Shaddadid-period walls (dwarfing and hiding the original keep) – there is no archaeological evidence to show they once looked like this. Since the rebuilders did not have a clue as to how tall the walls once were, or what the top of the walls once looked like, the new construction simply stops at a random and uniform height (just like the much-condemned Turkish “reconstruction” of the Ani walls). This extensive rebuilding goes completely against the core aims of modern conservation – by altering and by removing evidence of the structure’s chronology and history, the rebuilding work has destroyed the value of the site as an historic monument. I also expect that the massive additional weight of all that new masonry will have damaged the structural integrity of the surviving original masonry, placing the whole monument at risk of collapse (which is what has happened at Ani). The outer walls have also been inflicted by extensive rebuilding, ruining their historical value. And then there is the compulsory rebuilt church to ease the corrupt benefactor’s entrance into heaven. The loss of the site’s archaeology has also probably been extensive: large areas of earth seem to have been cleared away and I don’t remember hearing of any actual archaeological investigations to accompany the building work. And a place that was once beautiful is now ugly - it all just looks ugly.
I was assuming that the aim of the destruction was a simple a-la-Turca method of transferring money from the state to the local Talin mafia by using Dashtadem as a conduit and a front. For that to work, the project has to be made as large as possible (to artificially inflate the budget to make sure there would be plenty of money in it) and the actual work done needs to be done as cheaply as possible (to maximise the amount of money that can be diverted into the pockets of the criminals) - this is the way it worked in Turkey at Ani and at Aghtamar. If my assumption is wrong, then it just shows how backward conservation practices have become in Armenia and how the ego and wealth of a single person can enable that person to do whatever he likes. In most developed countries, the destruction inflicted on Dashtadem would have been illegal and a major criminal act. But most developed countries have laws in place to protect their important historical monuments – so it would not have got to the stage of being a crime - the work would never have even started. But it seems that in today’s Armenia, the people who should understand how to conserve monuments know nothing about conservation, and those who should be upholding protection laws are the ones breaking them.
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