“Dear God, take us to Armenia soon.”
Anna Semirjyan, Egypt, recalling a childhood prayer in Cairo

About the Exhibition

In 1946, the Great Repatriation to Soviet Armenia began. Over three years, some ninety thousand Armenians from eleven countries came home to a homeland their families had dreamed of for generations.

Their enthusiasm soon met a hard reality. Post-war Armenia was in severe economic and social difficulty, and the Soviet system met the newcomers with restrictions, suspicion and, often, repression.

Armenia: Open Door marks the 80th anniversary of the Great Repatriation. It tells the story through the eyes of individual people and families, presenting for the first time on this scale the private archives of repatriated families, alongside selected materials from the collections of the History Museum of Armenia.

The Exhibition Sections

Four interwoven sections guide visitors along the full path of repatriation.

Stories from the Attic

This work began years ago. In 2011, while filming in the United States, Tigran Paskevichyan called repatriate Harut Parsanyan. After a long silence, a voice on the line said:

“Where have you been? I have been waiting for you for 50 years.”
Harut Parsanyan

As the authors put it, the stories of repatriation had long been kept in our shared history as if stored away in an attic. This exhibition brings them back to the public.

The Team

First Showing

Venue

History Museum of Armenia, Yerevan

Dates

July 3 – September 2, 2026

Alongside

“Layers of Repatriation,” a three-day international conference