Iran and Germany are to set up joint museum; Iranian official

Speaking to ILNA news agency, the Iranian official said that after the German archaeological experts visited Iran, it was decided the museum's projects are set to open.

“Yazd Grand Museum is the first museum project that will be reopened jointly with the cooperation of foreign delegations,” he added.

Kargar confirmed that the German archaeological delegation was also interested in cooperating with us on museum projects; we offered them, and after studying they accepted it.

Referring to coronavirus damage to Iran’s museums, Mohammadreza Kargar said “Iranian museums and historical sites have taken 600 billion rials (about $14.2 million) hit from the coronavirus outbreak over the previous months.”

“Although the museums and other tourist sites have reopened their doors to the public gradually as restrictions over the coronavirus pandemic have been relaxed, they faced a huge loss due to the closure.”

However, the number of visitors during the past two weeks is not as much as we expected, he added.

Considering the fact that there are no foreign tourists in the country, the number of foreign tourists visiting museums is zero and the domestic visitors are only 20 percent of the number of the visitors in same period of time in the past year, he stated.

The country closed cultural heritage museums and historical sites in a preventive measure amid fears of coronavirus outbreak back in February.

During the Iranian New Year (Noruz) holidays in late March, some museums and tourist sites arranged online visits and virtual tours for the people who were in-home quarantine.

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