Tsitsernakaberd
The Armenian Genocide Memorial complex is Armenia's official memorial dedicated to the victims of the Armenian genocide, built in 1967 on the hill of Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan. Every year on 24 April, the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, thousands of Armenians gather at the memorial to commemorate the victims of the genocide. The people who gather in Tsiternakaberd lay fresh flowers out of respect for all the people who died in the Armenian genocide. Over the years, from around the world, a wide range of politicians, artists, musicians, athletes, and religious figures have visited the memorial.
Name
According to legend, this hill received the name "Tsitsernakaberd" from the name of the swallows living here, who helped the Armenian pagan gods Vahagn and Astghik convey news to each other.History
The idea of a genocide monument has its origin in the early 1960s when Hakob Zarobian was designated first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia in 1962. On 16 July 1964, historians Tsatur Aghayan, Hovhannes Injikian, and John Kirakosyan sent a highly confidential letter to the Presidium of the Communist Party of Armenia, where they made a series of proposal to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the genocide. Point 8 said: "To build the memorial of the victims of the Armenian people in World War I on account of the income of the population. The memorial must symbolize the rebirth of the Armenian people." On 13 December 1964, Zarobian sent a report-letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where the grounds and the meaning of the anniversary and the construction of the "monument dedicated to the Armenian martyrs sacrificed in World War I" were noted. The Council of Ministers of Soviet Armenia on March 16, 1965 adopted a resolution about "Building a Monument to Perpetuate the Memory of the Victims of the Yeghern of 1915."The construction of the monument began in 1966, during Soviet times, in response to the 1965 Yerevan demonstrations during which one hundred thousand people demonstrated in Yerevan for 24 hours to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the genocide. They demanded the Soviet authorities officially recognise it as a genocide. The memorial is designed by architects Arthur Tarkhanyan, Sashur Kalashyan and artist Hovhannes Khachatryan and was completed in November 1967.
Design
The Armenian Genocide Memorial complex has three main structures: the Temple of Eternity, the memorial column, and the memorial wall.Temple of Eternity
The Temple of Eternity consists of 12 stone slabs arranged in a circular shape, curved inward, with an eternal flame in the center. The number 12 was chosen based on geometric laws, but the people believe that these columns symbolize the 12 largest provinces in Western Armenia. In reality, the number of provinces of Western Armenia in the Ottoman Empire was six, in addition to which there was a separate Cilicia as the vilayet of Adana.Memorial column
Next to the Temple of Eternity is the memorial column, which is 44 meters high. It is divided into two parts: the large and small monuments, which express the idea of the rebirth of the nation.Memorial wall
Along the park at the memorial there is a 100-meter wall with the names of towns and villages where massacres and deportations are known to have taken place. On the rear side of the commemoration wall, plates have been attached to honor the people who committed themselves to relieving the distress of the survivors during and after the genocide, among them Johannes Lepsius, Franz Werfel, Armin T. Wegner, Henry Morgenthau Sr., Fridtjof Nansen, Pope Benedict XV, Jakob Künzler and Bodil Biørn.Alley of trees
An alley of trees has been planted to commemorate the genocide victims.Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute
The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute opened in 1995 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the genocide. The structure of the museum, planned by architects Sashur Kalashian, Lyudmila Mkrtchyan and sculptor F. Araqelyan, has followed a unique design. Since opening, the museum has received tens of thousands of visitors including schoolchildren, college students and huge numbers of tourists from outside Armenia. The Republic of Armenia has turned visiting the museum into part of state protocol and many official foreign delegations have already visited the museum. These delegations have included Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, Presidents of France Jacques Chirac and Francois Hollande, and other well-known public and political figures. The museum contains historical documents and is open to the public for guided tours in Armenian, Russian, English, French, and German.The two-story building is built directly into the side of a hill so as not to detract from the presence of the Genocide Monument nearby. The roof of the museum is flat and covered with concrete tiles. It overlooks the scenic Ararat Valley and majestic Mount Ararat. The first floor of the museum is subterranean and houses the administrative, engineering and technical maintenance offices as well as Komitas Hall, which seats 170 people. Here also are situated the storage rooms for museum artifacts and scientific objects, as well as a library and a reading hall. The museum exhibit is located on the second floor in a space just over 1,000 square meters in size. There are three main indoor exhibit halls and an outer gallery with its own hall. The Genocide Monument is designed to memorialize the victims. The Genocide Museum's mission is rooted in the understanding that the Armenian Genocide is important in preventing similar future tragedies, and in keeping with the notion that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
The institute also conducts academic research into the genocide and publishes books on the subject and a journal, International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies.
The Armenian Genocide Memorial improvement project
The goal of the improvement project was to organize cultural, entertainment, and sports events that meet the needs of different groups of park visitors.It is planned to build an open-air museum of ancient Armenian architecture in the park, where a large number of fragments of monuments and khachkars scattered throughout Armenia will be collected, an active recreation area that will open onto the Hrazdan Valley and be connected to the city via vertical transport and a cable car, a sports area with its structures, squares and an aquatic center and quiet recreation area planned on the western side of the park.
Interesting facts
Every year, in the days following April 24, hundreds of thousands of flowers brought to the Memorial were taken to trash cans and burned. Since 2010, these flowers have been collected and the petals separated from the stems. The stems are then used to make fertilizer for the soil in the Memorial area, and the petals are used to make recycled paper, which is then used in the Genocide Museum.This ceremony combines two ideas: turning flowers into silent witnesses and preserving the environment. Traditionally, the ceremony is open to anyone who wishes. In 2015, the ceremony lasted two days, April 27 and April 28, due to the large number of flowers on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.