YEREVAN CHRONOLOGY

Vladimir Lenin's monument was dismantled, prior to the independence of Armenia. The statue was erected in 1940.

The monument to Lenin in Yerevan was erected on November 24, 1940 and demolished in 1991. In Soviet times, it was generally accepted that the monument was one of the best, if not the best, monument to the "leader of the world proletariat" in the USSR. The pedestal of the monument, dismantled in 1996, was also considered a work of art. Since 1991, the body of the monument to Lenin lies in the courtyard of the National Art Gallery, and the head is stored in a warehouse. The remains of the pedestal are stored in the warehouse of the Yerevan Municipality in Charbakh.

From the book of the chief architect of Yerevan (1937-51) Mark Grigoryan "Lenin Square in Yerevan. Memories of design and construction" (1969):

In 1931, a closed competition was announced for the design of the Palace of Labor on Lenin Square. The Palace of Labor was supposed to occupy the trapezoidal part of the square. The first prize was awarded to the group of architect B. Kochar. The authors envisaged the installation of a monument to Lenin in front of the Palace of Labor, that is, in combination with the building and facing south. This proposal was the opposite of the one conceived by the author of the city plan (academician Alexander Tamanyan - ed.) and the current location. It was the first option to change the location of the monument, subsequently supported by some other architects.

Over time, when the idea of ​​building the Palace of Labor disappeared, Tamanyan came up with the idea of ​​building up the square without a building along the main axis of the square. With many options for building the square, Tamanyan firmly maintained the location of the monument to Lenin at the junction of the square with the city boulevard, i.e. on the south side where it is now.

At the end of the 1920s, according to Tamanyan's drawings, a small obelisk (no more than one and a half to two meters) was erected here from a polished Dzharkhech conglomerate with an inscription approximately as follows: "A monument to the leader of the Great October Socialist Revolution will be erected here ...". Of course, the date of installation of the obelisk was also indicated. However, the question of where the monument to Lenin should be erected was discussed in the period 1937-1938. pretty sharp.

In 1937, the need arose to build a monument to the leader of the revolution. In 1938, an all-Union open competition was announced for the project of a monument to V.I. Lenin. Levon Osipyan, the Chairman of the Jury Council, was the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Yerevan City Council, and Mark Grigoryan, the Chief Architect of the city, was the Secretary.

Having considered the results of the jury's work, the government of the republic came to the decision to entrust the development of the project of the monument with the execution of Lenin's sculpture to the People's Artist of the USSR Sergei Merkurov together with the architects Natalya Paremuzova and Levon Vartanov.

Experienced stonemasons of Ukraine named Tarasyuk, Hayduk, Nosenko, who previously worked on the construction of the Opera and Ballet Theatre, polisher Anna Bogdanova and others took part in the execution of the monument on the spot. Sculptor Karo Metsaturyan put a lot of work into the creation of the monument. He made the capitals of the corner columns of the podium with particular care.

The stone basalt barriers of the rostrum for guests were hewn, and a complex ornament was carved on it by Armenian and Georgian craftsmen. Most of the Georgians then arrived from the region of the city of Kutaisi. This international team worked in the construction industry with great enthusiasm. The beginning of the construction of the monument dates back to the summer of 1939, and to the beginning of the winter of 1940-1941. and the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia, that is, on November 29, in a solemn atmosphere, the monument to Lenin was opened.

Twice a year - on the day of international solidarity of workers on May 1 and on November 7, on the anniversary of the October Revolution - the leaders of the republic rose to the podium and hosted a military parade (on May Day, a military parade was held until 1969, and in that year Moscow decided that saber-rattling on workers' day) and the so-called workers' demonstration.

Once every 10 years, a wooden extension was added to the sides of the central stand. The fact is that on the 40th (1961), 50th (1970) and 60th anniversary (1980) of Soviet Armenia, the leaders of the fraternal union republics came to Yerevan, in addition to them (or rather, first of all), in In 1961, Nikita Khrushchev visited us, in 1970 - Leonid Brezhnev. The extensions were made in order to fit on the podium the first secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of all 14 union republics (in Russia, as you know, there was no Central Committee of its own, the regional committees and regional committees were directly subordinate to the Central Committee of the CPSU, and only at the end of Soviet power, in June 1990, the Central Committee was formed the newly created Communist Party of the RSFSR headed by Ivan Polozkov).

... It seemed to be a monument of the century, but over time the situation changed. Troubled times for the monument came in the late 80s and early 90s of the last century. In February 1991, as it turned out later, participants in a demonstration of supporters of independence poured paint over the monument. One night, explosives were planted at the back door, and the stunningly beautiful door with a carved metal pattern was destroyed. April 13, 1991 the monument was dismantled. They removed the monument with noise, whistling, with such pathos and enthusiasm, as if, by overthrowing Lenin, all the problems of the country would be solved overnight.

Since that day, the statue of Lenin lies in the courtyard of the National Art Gallery of Armenia: the body is separate, the head is separate. The pedestal was empty on the square for five years.

To dismantle the pedestal, a government decision was required, due to the fact that it is an architectural and historical monument. The pedestal is made of polished granite, and the government platform under the monument is lined with basalt. The side stands are covered with filigree stone carvings in the form of an Armenian national ornament made by the best Armenian masons of their time.

Part of the experts and the public believed that it was necessary to install a new monument on the pedestal, which would become a symbol of independent Armenia, and the radical public spoke in favor of the unconditional demolition of the pedestal as a symbol of the "totalitarian past." The struggle to keep the pedestal turned out to be much more fierce than the discourse on removing Lenin from this pedestal. Journalists, architects, artists, poets, famous cultural figures and not-so-famous people wrote notes in newspapers in defense of the pedestal, condemning those who sought to remove it from the square. The famous poetess Silva Kaputikyan wrote that she would cross out the name of President Levon Ter-Petrosyan from the ballot only because “with his knowledge, such an act of vandalism was committed on the soil of Armenia as the demolition of a pedestal - a work of art” (Voice of Armenia. 1996, August 6 ), and one old woman even compared the destruction of Lenin's plinth to the destruction of the Church of Poghos and Petros (St. Paul and Peter) in Yerevan during the early years of Soviet rule.

The pedestal was demolished in accordance with a government decision in July 1996.

Material source: Mediamax