Foreign Grants of the Ministry of Culture

Foreign Grants of the Ministry of Culture

“Union of Informed Citizens” has already introduced the international grants Armenia received in the agriculture sector. In continuation of the series, we are presenting the international grants provided to the culture sector.

The data provided by the Ministries of Culture and Finance of Armenia in response to our inquiry testify that organizations functioning under the RA Ministries of Culture and Finance received a total grant amount of 4,060,180 US Dollars during 2005-2014.

By Projects

In terms of the amount of financial assistance, the first place belongs to “National Cinema Center of Armenia” SNCO. The SNCO has received more than 3 million Euro assistance from different countries for shooting 10 films.

In 2013, the Russian Federation allocated 501,140 Russian rubles (about 16 thousand USD) to “Gyumri State Dramatic Theatre after V. Achemyan” SNCO for the activities carried out within the framework of “Gyumri as the Cultural Capital of CIS Countries” and international theatre festival “Duet”.

In 2008-2014, “National Philarmonic Orchestra of Armenia” received a total grant amount of 21,177,600 AMD from Italy, France, Poland, Latvia, Open Society Foundations – Armenia, and Eurasia Foundation for the organization and realization of different concerts.

The contriversial restoration and reinforcement of the medieval “Bridge” monument in the administrative area of Garni community was implemented with the amount of 32,423,368 AMD provided by the US Embassy in the Republic of Armenia in 2011.

In 2010-2013, the National Gallery of Armenia received materials and equipment equal to 126,664,604 AMD from Italy and Japan.

In 2010-2012, different regional libraries received grants from Civilitas Foundation, Kingdom of Netherlands and USA. The grants, the total amount of which formed 19,700,700 AMD, were obtained in order to get new books and equipment.

By Countries

Thus, during the last 10 years, the European institutions and countries have allocated a total amount of 1,4 million USD for the culture, Ukraine – about 1,3 million USD, the US – more than 700 thousand USD, Russia – 360 thousand USD, Georgia – about 230 thousand USD, and Japan – more than 100 thousand USD.

Hence, it results that the Armenian culture gets the prevailing amount of its foreign assistance from Europe.

Besides, it is ridiculous that to this moment culture is the only sector discovered by us that has received financial assistance from Russia. At the same time, this assistance is more than three times less than the grants received from Ukraine and only slightly exceeds the grant amounts received from neighboring Georgia.

* – The dollar amounts of European, Ukranian, Georgian and Russian grants may have a few per cent error because of fluctuations of currency rates.

Tatevik Vardanyan,

“Union of Informed Citizens”