On June 14, 2025, the winners of “Get to Know Matenadaran” quiz-game visited Matenadaran. The quiz was initiated by Mediamax in cooperation with JTI Armenia, the long-time partner of Matenadaran.
The four-round quiz-game was held from May 5 to May 30. Out of 246 registered participants, Mariam Minasyan and Milena Dallakyan have correctly answered all 24 questions. Three more participants - Almast Muradyan, Gayane Barkhudaryan and Lilit Vardanyan, answered 20 questions correctly.
Arayik Khzmalyan Photo: Mediamax
At the meeting with the winners, Director of Matenadaran Arayik Khzmalyan said that Matenadaran is more than a museum or a scientific center.
“Armenians know what solstice is, but they are not familiar with Matenadaran,” he noted, emphasizing that many have heard the name Matenadaran, but they don’t know its value and what it really symbolizes. According to Arayik Khzmalyan, this gap needs to be filled, especially among young people.
He is confident that Matenadaran should become a hub of national self-identification.
The meeting turned into a dialogue, during which different topics have been discussed: reading manuscripts, medieval music, cultural education, and professional dreams.
Milena DallakyanPhoto: Mediamax
Milena Dallakyan is a student at the Faculty of History, Chair of History and Theory of Armenian Art of Yerevan State University. She has been following Matenadaran on Facebook for a long time and has learned about the quiz through it.
“I clicked on the link, took part in the first round and then I was anxiously waiting for the next one,” she said.
Milena did not do any special research to answer the questions.
Mariam Minasyan and Milena DallakyanPhoto: Mediamax
“I answered all the questions without studying additional materials. I was sure that I had answered all of them correctly, but it was still a surprise when I got a call saying I had won,” Milena admits. She used to frequent Matenadaran even before the quiz, volunteering and participating in various events.
“It was very interesting for me to meet the Director of Matenadaran also because he holds a Ph.D. in Arts, and I am a future art historian,” says Milena Dallakyan.
According to Arayik Khzmalyan, after the 2020 war, he decided to leave the post of Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports and return to Matenadaran, where he was the director of the archives and the museum between 2009 and 2017.
“If we don’t think carefully about ourselves, we are really in danger. Matenadaran can become a place that will help society rediscover its identity,” said Arayik Khzmalyan.
Mariam Minasyan Photo: Mediamax
The second winner, Mariam Minasyan, has been regularly visiting Matenadaran for two years and participating in conferences dedicated to linguistics and musicology.
She is a vocalist by profession, but her life is more multifaceted.
“I also focus on Indo-European studies," she said.
Photo: Mediamax
Matenadaran attracts Mariam not only as a scientific center but also as an educational space. “If they have new ancient Greek and Latin classes, I will definitely enroll again,” she says.
Photo: Mediamax
The guests toured Matenadaran’s newly opened Medieval Arts and Crafts Laboratory-Exhibition, which is both a classroom and a studio where visitors, dressed in a cloak, an alchemist’s hat, and a symbolic necklace, turn into medieval recluses.
Photo: Mediamax
Here visitors can learn how herbs and minerals were utilized to create the vibrant colors and inks used in medieval manuscripts
Photo: Mediamax
This experience was probably the most tangible moment of the quiz. Seeing, touching and feeling how a book, a culture is born from soil, water, and time.
Photo: Mediamax
The day at Matenadaran ended in the Manuscript Restoration Department where time enters into a dialogue with itself.
Photo: Mediamax
It is here that the past is literally being restored.
And the main message of the day can probably be formulated as: Matenadaran not only preserves history, but also helps shape the present and the future through it.
Astghik Hovhannesov
Photos by Agape Grigoryan
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