his wonderful little home museum
is worth the visit just to sample a bit of Old Echmiadzin elegance, as well as to escape the pulverizing summer sun within its shaded walled garden with fountain. The home was built in traditional Armenian design with a large wooden porch, thick stone walls and narrow windows, but the effect is still light and airy. Though displays are in Russian and Armenian, they still capture a way of life and intellectual prowess that crosses all language barriers.

Hovhannes Hovhanessian (1864-1929), was a part of the Ashkharabar or Modern Armenian literature movement, which used a simpler and more easily understood form of the language. Separate from Grapar (grah-PAHR) or old Armenian, Ashkharabar was used by Abovian, Nalbandian and others to create a new form of expression, and to question the feudal system that was entrenched in Armenia in the early 19th century.

Part of the intellectual circles that arose in the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century, best known as a linguist and translator, Hovhanessian was a contemporary of Charents, Toumanian, Shirvanzadeh, Teghian and Komitas, all of whom studied in Vagharshapat. Together with the Russian linguist and writer Valeri Brusov, he translated the first edition of ancient Armenian manuscripts into Ashkharabar. Hovhanessian also translated the first modern Armenian editions of works by Schiller, Pushkin, Goethe, Nekrasov, Ibsen and Hainze. His translation of the Shakespeare canon is still considered one of the most accurate translations into any language.

The museum displays pictures and artifacts from his life, including his study, with his favorite fishing pole and the copy of Turgenov left exactly as he placed it on the day he died. Part of the intellectual circles that created the new socialist republic, he was among those suspected by Stalin as a counter-revolutionary, yet died before the great purges began in 1936, which wiped out the intellectual class in Armenia.

HOVHANNES HOVHANESSIAN MUSEUM
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The museum is open Monday to Saturday from 9 am to 5 pm during May - October, and from 10 am to 4 pm during November - April. Admission is 50AMD. Tel: 53370

The museum is in the courtyard behind the Abeghian museum, though the archway. In front is a tuf wall with a wooden door, often locked. No matter--turn right and follow the wall to the northwest end, where a small wooden door lies. Knock.