Armenian images and flavours for the delight of the people living in Cluj
On January 31, 2012, the Armenian community in Cluj – a small community but more and more present in the multicultural life of the city – invited the public to an event filled with Armenian images and flavors. Mircea Tivadar, the president of theArmenianMuseum, had the idea to combine an Armenian motifs icons exhibition opening with an Armenian food tasting. The idea was embraced by Mr. Tudor Sălăgean, the director of theEthnographicMuseum, the institution that hosted the event. The protagonists were the painter Ermone Zabel Martaian, fromBudapest, and Paul Agopian from Bucharest, amateur culinary virtuoso. The young painter comes from the Martaian family – renowned Armenian carpet makers of Armenopolis (Gherla) – and she inherited from her ancestors the drawing and color matching talent. The originality of her work lies in the combination of the Armenian miniatures motifs and unique colouring, with the icon painting on glass technique, specific for the Transylvanian Orthodox space. For a while now, Ermone Zabel Martaian, known both inRomaniaand in Hungary thanks to her exhibitions, teaches a course on Introduction into icon painting on glass, at the Armenian cultural center in Budapest.
Paul Agopian inherited his passion for cooking from a great grandfather who came fromArmeniain 1915, and who became a highly regarded chef in Arges. Paul Agopian has delighted the audience, who attended the exhibition in Cluj, with a number of salads made from exotic ingredients, specific for the regions Musah Dagh and Van inArmenia. The young culinary artist published in an Ararat Magazine supplement, Armenian traditional food recipes and stories about them. The event, held under the title “Armenians introduce themselves” was the result of a partnership between the Union of Armenians in Cluj, the Armenian Museum Association and the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania and was a success.
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