MAISON MUSEE DES FRERES MIKOYAN

Lulled by the memory and melodies of the 18th century Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova, Sanahin was also glorified, in Soviet times, by two other children of the country, the Migoyan brothers, to whom a museum is dedicated, announced by an unusual Soviet hunter of the Mig-21 type, exhibited on a pedestal in the heart of the village, of which one of the brothers, Artem, was the builder. General of the Soviet Air Force and aircraft manufacturer, Artem Mikoyan gave his name to a whole fleet of Mig-type fighter planes, a type of aircraft still in use in the Russian Air Force. He is the designer of the Mig-21 exhibited in Sanahin, whose cockpit can be visited before going to the nearby house-museum dedicated to the Soviet general and aeronautical engineer, housed in the modest house where he was born, with his brother Anastase, who had no less glorious service in the former USSR. Anastase Mikoyan (1895-1978) was a Soviet politician who owed his longevity less to his Caucasian origins than to a sense of diplomacy that enabled him to serve in the Politburo during the reign of the Georgian Stalin, who had no leniency for Armenians and Georgians alike, and his successors, surviving all the purges that had eliminated all his fellow travelers. The museum exhibits personal belongings and the family environment of the two Soviet heroes, which cover an important part of the history of the former USSR.