News - The Red Bridge has reopened after restoration.

The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports reports that the Red Bridge monument, located in the Central Administrative District of Yerevan, has been opened after stabilization, renovation and restoration works. The opening of the historic Yerevan Red Bridge also marks the conclusion of the European Heritage Days program, which is carried out within the framework of cooperation between the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports and the European Union. The opening ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Head of the Prime Minister's Office Araik Harutyunyan, Minister Zhanna Andreasyan of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan, the EU Ambassador to Armenia Vasilis Maragos, and the Deputy Ministers of the Ministry Alfred Kocharyan and Daniel Danielyan. According to Minister Zhanna Andreasyan, in recent years the Armenian government has been carrying out monument restoration and reinforcement works on a substantially larger scale, by significantly increasing allocations in the state budget. By involving the private sector in the restoration process of monuments, we also contribute to changing public attitudes toward monuments—toward more responsible and careful handling of preservation issues. The restoration of the Red Bridge is one of its best examples. We are witnessing how one of Yerevan's oldest bridges, as part of Yerevan's historic and cultural heritage, has become accessible to our citizens and to tourists, as an interesting place for leisure and recreation, the minister said. According to him, to make Yerevan's historical and cultural heritage more visible and accessible, continuous work is being carried out. Yerevan's Urartian heritage has been included in UNESCO's preliminary list. Referring to the European Heritage Days wrap-up within the day, Minister Zhanna Andreasyan noted that the pooling of efforts around this event shows that Armenian cultural heritage is part of the global heritage, where our culture has its own distinctive character. During the event there was also a concert in a jam-session format. The restoration of the Red Bridge monument has been carried out within the framework of a memorandum of cooperation signed in 2022 between the Ministry and a benefactor. The monument has been restored in 2024–2025 with the funds of benefactor Yuri Afrikyan, preserving all historical layers that reflect the value of the reconstruction. It is a monument of republican significance, located on the Hrazdan River. It is the oldest preserved bridge in Yerevan and is considered one of the largest engineering structures of medieval Armenia: it stands 11 m high, 80 m long and 6.5 m wide. Connecting the banks of the Hrazdan Gorge, the bridge provided road connectivity from Yerevan's fortress to the Ararat plain. It had strategic importance: commercial caravans, loaded carts, animals, soldiers and cavalry passed over it, transporting artillery and other military materiel. The bridge is a structure dating from the 10th–13th centuries, with ashlar façades, vaults and three-tiered, toothed-arched fronts. Over its existence the structure has repeatedly suffered damage from earthquakes and events in various historical periods. After the powerful earthquake of 1679, the bridge was fundamentally rebuilt or constructed under the patronage of wealthy merchant and philanthropist Khodja Plavi (real name Hakob). For this reason the bridge is sometimes called the Khodja Plavi Bridge, and it was named “Red” due to the color shades of the baked bricks and red tuff stones used therein. In 1655 the bridge was depicted by the French traveler Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who noted that the bridge had three arches. In a preserved painting from 1796 the bridge already has four openings: two large central ones and one small on each side. In photographs from the Soviet era the bridge already shows two large central openings and edge-side solid protective piers. Restoration and foundation works were carried out in the 1830s and the 1960s, during which basalt buttresses were added to the bridge’s two edges for reinforcement. Later, in the 1980s, the restoration works remained unfinished. Until 2024–2025, only the bridge’s southern large arch and the northern pavilion had been preserved; the bridge was effectively ruined and urgently required restoration, the press release states.