The Building in Which Yeghishe Charents Lived and Worked

The old Yerevan two-story building located at 46, Nalbandyan St, and built at the beginning of the 20th century could go unnoticed despite the fact that the office of the Russian VTB Bank’s Armenian branch is now located here.

However, a noteworthy fact is associated with this building. Outstanding Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents lived and worked in this house in 1920.

In 1918-1920, the Ministry of Culture and Education of the First Republic of Armenia was located in this building. From August 1919 to May 1920, the Minister of Culture and Education of Armenia was Nikol Aghbalian.

It was Aghbalyan who invited the young talented poet Yegishe Charents to work in the ministry as commissioner for special assignments.

Charents worked in this building from January to May 1920. Since he had recently returned from the Kars region where he worked as a teacher in one of the villages and did not have a place in Yerevan where he could live and work, Nikol Aghbalian provided him with one of the rooms of the Ministry of Education.

It should be noted that in the first years of the Soviet regime, the people’s commissariat of education was stationed in this building. Yegishe Charents worked there as well as the head of the art department from 1920 to May 1921.

Ruben Shukhyan