More than 5,000 attendees at Hill of Honor over week-end

Hill of Honor was attended by more than 5,000 people within two days, following its opening in the second largest city of Armenia, Gyumri. Thousands of people gathered here to lay flowers and wreaths.

Hill of Honor’s opening ceremony took place on August 20 and was held by Presidents of Armenia and Russia. The ceremony also gathered numerous officials, war veterans, and guests.

A spokesperson to the Armenian-Russian Charity Foundation “The Matters of Honor” told media that Gyumri natives who came here on Saturday and Sunday expressed their surprise that the Hill of Honor was reconstructed within such short time. Among them were also new settlers of Mush-2 of the Gyumri region, who before lived in the dilapidated children’s dispensary which was built here in the center of the Russian cemetery in the middle of the 20th century.

The Hill of Honor is a renovated Russian military cemetery where 156 Russian Army officers, killed in the Russian-Turkish wars of the 19th century, are buried. The military cemetery has a history from 1856, when the Commander of the Caucasian Corps, General Nikolay Muravyev ordered to bury officers here, opening a Russian military burial place. Later, a Russian Orthodox chapel was built here for services to commemorate the killed soldiers and officers. In mid 1950s, in the Soviet-era times, here right in the middle of the graves, there was built a children’s dispensary.

Russia’s Ambassador to Armenia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko proposed to renovate the Hill, and the idea was supported by governments of Armenia and Russia.

In 2009, a working group was established to coordinate the project, with a public figure, president of the All-Armenian International Youth Center, Andranik Nikogosian on the head. The Armenian-Russian Charity Foundation “Matters of Honor” was established to coordinate the project-related issues. Its co-chairs are Chief of the Armenian Office of the Rossotrudnichestvo Viktor Krivopuskov, and Andranik Nikogosian.

A copy of the 13-meter monument to Russian soldiers killed during wars of 1828, 1855 и 1877 in Kars, was installed here projected by an Ulyanovsk native, architect Oleg Vladimirov. An obelisk by sculptor Yuri Minasian was installed here on March 31 2010.

The master copy by Boris Mikeshin was crushed by Turks in 1918 after 8 years of installation.

A stamp and postal block featuring the Hill of Honor was issued by the opening of the restored memorial.