The director of the State Hermitage of Saint Petersburg, Honorary Citizen of Yerevan Mikhail Piotrovski accompanied by Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan visited the archaeological site of Karmir Blur (Red Hill).

The director of the historical and archaeological museum-reserve “Erebuni” Mikael Badalyan on the spot presented the activities carried out in the area recently and the further development programs for the archaeological site. A significant area of the site which is one of the most important in the region used to be covered with building wastes for years. And the first step was to clean up Karmir Blur.
It was noted that about 500 trucks of building wastes were removed from the area, the area of 1.7 hectares was cleaned up. Today the Municipality takes steps to popularize the archeological site and make Karmir Blur (The Red Hill) an interesting cultural, touristic area.
During the visit the excavations in the area were being carried out by the Armenian-Austrian joint archaeological group. The unexcavated parts of Karmir Blur have been scanned with special geolocation systems which will open another perspective for further studies of the site.
By the way, Mikhail Piotrovski’s father Boris Piotrovski carried out diggings in this are in the 1930s and got valuable findings in the residence of the viceroy of the Urartu Kingdom-Karmir Blur.