Nov 10, 2003, 6:47 PM

Historical Edifice of Khoy Municipality to Be Turned Into Museum

TEHRAN, November 10 (Mehr News Agency) -- The historical building of Khoy Municipality, survived from the Qajar dynasty with a unique ornate plaster and a twin ornamental pillar outside, is to be turned into a museum.

A total of one billion rials has been allocated for this process, the Mehr News Agency reported.            

 

Based on a 10-year agreement, renovation process of the building has been submitted to the Cultural Heritage Department of Azerbaijan Province by the Islamic City Council of Khoy in order to turn it into a great historical museum.

 

Zeinolabedin Salehjoo, the mayor of Khoy, in a phone interview said that the edifice of the Khoy municipality with an arched stone portal, located in the center of the city, is historically very significant.

 

Having a cellar, a ground floor, and two entrances, the building has already been under renovation by khoy Cultural Heritage Office.

        

A city in northwestern Iran, Khoy is located near the border with Turkey north of Lake Urmia, West Azerbaijan province.

 

According to the Information Department of the country’s Cultural Heritage Organization, it is an ancient city dating back to at least the Sassanian Empire (A.D. 224-651).

 

The major places of interest in Khoy are its 19th-century roofed brick bazaar, a caravansary, gardens and a number of old mosques. Old Armenian churches can be found in nearby villages. The city itself is marked by broad, regular streets.

 

The city has a small derelict museum including housing archeological section, anthropology section, and traditional arts section.

 

By transferring the historical objects housed in the small museum to the building of the municipality, the city will have a historically valuable museum, Khoy mayor continued.

 

Located on the Silk Road, 23 kilometers (14 miles) west of the main Iran-Turkey highway and 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the railway connecting Iran and Turkey, Khoy has been a major commercial center before and after Islam.

 

Despite the many quakes which jolted the city and the several battles fought in or around Khoy, including the 16th- and 17th-century wars between the Ottoman and Safavid empires and the battles between Ottoman and Russian troops during World War I (1914-1918), Khoy has played a key role in the economy of the region.

 

SN/SRM

END

MNA

 
News ID 2864

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