YEREVAN, April 25. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Central Bank had to respond to allegations in social networking services that the new generation five thousand dram banknote depicts mistakenly a Muslim tombstone instead of an Armenian church.

The allegations first appeared in a Facebook post by a specialist in historical monuments and historian of architecture Samvel Karapetyan, who wrote that the reverse of the banknote depicts not an Armenian church, but a Muslim tombstone. He said it was a mistake of the Central Bank.

A spokesman for the Central Bank, Harutyun Berberyan, told ARKA news agency that before printing and putting into circulation new banknotes, the Central bank places information about them on its website with a clear description of banknotes.

According to him, the description of the five thousand banknote states that its obverse depicts a portrait of American-Armenian author William Saroyan, fragments from his story “Pomegranates”, as well as illustrations for books and a pomegranate tree.

He said the reverse of the banknote depicts the statue of Saroyan, installed in Yerevan, and the background is the panorama of his ancestors' hometown Baghesh (Bitlis) of the early 20th century, which is now in Turkey.

"The description has no mention of a church. Thus, the observation of Samvel Karapetyan that the image on the bill is supposedly a church is already misleading," he said.

On November 22, 2018, the Central Bank put into circulation third generation banknotes. The new so-called composite banknotes with advanced anti-counterfeiting features are made from paper and polymers.

The new banknotes are with face value of 10 thousand, 20 thousand, 50 thousand, 1000 drams, 2000 drams and 5,000 drams. The new generation banknotes are in circulation simultaneously with older banknotes.

Great Armenia poet Paruyr Sevak is depicted on banknotes with face value of 1,000 drams, world chess champion Tigran Petrosyan is depicted on banknotes with face value of 2,000 drams, American Armenian writer William Saroyan is on banknotes with face value of 5,000 drams, great Armenian composer Komitas is on banknotes with face value of 10,000 drams, great Armenian painter Hovhannes Aivazovsky is on banknotes with face value of 20,000 drams and Saint Gregory the Illuminator, the founder of the Armenian Apostolic Church, is depicted on banknotes with face value of 50,000 drams.

The tender announced for printing the new banknotes was won by German company Giesecke & Devrient.-0-