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Abulfas Garayev: â€œMuseum guides do not know even the history of exhibits thereâ€

23 June 2009 10:26 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ulkar Gasimova â€“ APA. On Tuesday, Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev held a meeting on the implementation of the â€œPlan of special measures for modern restoration and supply of museums with new equipments and necessary exhibits in the regions of Azerbaijan in 2009-2014â€ approved according to the presidential order issued on May 22, 2009. Directors of the central and regional museums attended the meeting at the Museum Center, APA reports.

The minister said he was not satisfied with the state of museums in the regions of Azerbaijan. He said the presidential order was issued in time. â€œWe have to notice our achievements in this field in recent years, including the restoration of museums in Baku, the Carpet Museum construction and cooperation with the number of well-known museums abroad. But we have to speak about the problems too. Unfortunately young generation has less interest to the history and to the museums. We have to try to solve these problemsâ€. Garayev said the regional museums had a problem with guides. â€œIt is hard to speak about this problem. The museum guides donâ€™t know even the history of exhibits there. All guides have this problem. For example, the guides give different information to foreign tourists about the history of Maiden Tower in Baku. Who will learn our history if we donâ€™t know it? The guides also have no language skills to accompany the foreign tourists in the museums. All museum guides in Azerbaijan need to pass personnel appraisal.

The minister of culture and tourism also noted the inaccuracy in the museums. â€œThere is no enough attention to the accuracy in the museums, particularly, saving the exhibits and creating their e-versions. The museums should have their websites. We have five years to do all this work. If we can do that we will save our history and culture, if we canâ€™t we will lose everythingâ€.
Vice President of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Director of the Azerbaijan National Museum of History Naila Velikhanli emphasized the necessity of renovation of the funds in the museum. She said the museums had to work hard to solve all these problems.