Azerbaijan’s historical monuments can attract more tourists: minister
By Jamila Babayeva
One of the main goals in Azerbaijan is to increase the number of tourists by attracting their attention to historical monuments.
The remarks were made by Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfas Garayev at the presentation of the State Program on protecting immovable historical and cultural monuments and improving and developing historical and cultural reserves in 2014-2020 on March 11.
Garayev said the last inventory of historical monuments in Azerbaijan was carried out in 2001, when 6.308 monuments were included in the list. "In the past four or five years, 1.705 new monuments have been added to the list, and passports have been prepared for more than 100 historical monuments," he noted.
Saying that all historical monuments must be provided with passports, Garayev added: "But the Culture and Tourism Ministry is not the only organization that should deal with this issue. Issuing passports to more than eight thousand monuments take a lot of effort, so all government agencies should be involved in this work."
He stressed that one of the main issues is the organization of works for protecting historical monuments. "The local community should also take an active part in this work," Garayev concluded.
Speaking at the event, Vise President of the National Academy of Sciences Isa Habibbeyli suggested the establishment of a working group for the systematic implementation of the State Program.
He noted that 699 monuments belonging to Azerbaijan are currently in the territories occupied by Armenia, and expressed regret that works for informing the world community about these monuments are not carried out systematically.
"The Human Rights Institute of the National Academy of Sciences is preparing materials about these monuments to inform the world community," Habibbeyli said. "But we should recognize that these works are not carried out in a systematic way, each state body is holding these works separately. These works must be systematic".
Noting the importance of classifying Azerbaijan's monuments, he said these works will determine monuments of world importance.