Sergei Parajanov Museum in Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov (1924 to 1990), born in Tblisi, Georgia (then part of the USSR), came to international prominence with a film called he made in Ukraine called Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.  World renowned, his reward at home in the Soviet Union was to be banned from making films.  He moved to Yerevan in Armenia (still part of the Soviet Union) and made The Color of Pomegranates.  Without words or even too much camera movement, it told the story of a revered Armenian poet.  This was also acclaimed as masterpiece and this time was banned from filmmaking and eventually thrown in jail for 5 years

This museum captures and celebrates his resolute refusal to stop creating.  There are amazing displays of playing cards and artworks hand made in prison.  Other beautiful collages from a time when he was banned from filmmaking.  The museum is filled with artifacts that whether you love them or not you must acknowledge Parajanov’s passion and joy.  There images from sets–and apparently certain rooms are recreation of his flat in Tblisi.  As a final note, what finer exemplar of the geographic fluidity and complexity of the Armenian diaspora is an Armenian filmmaker born in what is now Georgia, and who made major films in what is now the Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and whose museum is in the capital of an sovereign Armenia?

Cross the threshold . . .