SQUARES AND PARKS
ANDREI SAKHAROV SQUARE
1850-1860, 1924, 1960s
State index: 1.6.102
Architect Alexander
Tamanyan
Located at the
intersection of Vardanants (formerly Knunyants), Nalbandyan, and Pushkin
streets. It connects to Republic Square via Nalbandyan Street and plays an
important role in shaping the city center.
Rectangular in plan
(88 × 62 m). The longitudinal axis stretches from northeast to southwest. In
the general plan of Yerevan, compiled by academician Alexander Tamanyan in
1924, it was presented with expanded borders on the site of the square called
Panah Khan Square during the Persian rule, and New Square during the Russian
rule (1850-1860s).
The development of
the square began in the late 1920s. Of the old buildings, only a two-story
building on the corner of Nalbandyan-Vardanants remains - the former Royal
Palace and provincial treasury (1901, black tuff, architects Vasily Mirzoyan,
N. Kitkin). The main development was carried out in the 1930s. The first
building on the square was the State Insurance building of the Armenian SSR
(1929-1931, architects Karo Halabyan, Mikael Mazmanyan, Gevorg Kochar). In
subsequent years, the Geological Committee building (1930-1933, architects Karo
Halabyan, Mikael Mazmanyan, Gevorg Kochar), the Voluntary Fire Society building
(Fire Station, 1930, architect Nikolay Buniatyan, construction carried out by
architect Konstantin Hovhannisyan, reconstructed in the 1950s according to the
design of architect Anna Ter-Avetikyan and a third floor was added), an
administrative building (1960s, architect Gevorg Musheghyan), and a residential
building (1960s, architect A. Nalbandyan) were built. From 1931 to 1936, the
Museum of Yerevan History (Municipal Museum) operated on the second floor of
the Fire Station building, which was moved to the Blue Mosque area in 1936.
The first Prime
Minister of the First Republic of Armenia, architect Hovhannes Kajaznuni, lived
in two rooms on the first floor of the building part on Pushkin Street. Until
2013, the 8th fire and rescue squad of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of
the Republic of Armenia of Yerevan was located here. In 1935, part of the
Geological Committee building was transferred to the newly created Armenian
branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Armfan).
Until 1991, Sakharov
Square bore the name of the Bolshevik revolutionary, one of the members of the
Baku Commune, Meshadi Azizbekov. From 1932 to 1991, his bust was installed in
the center of the square (sculptor Suren Stepanyan). In 2000, on the site of
the monument, on a cylindrical basalt pedestal, a bust of the world-renowned
physicist, nuclear scientist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences,
Nobel Prize laureate, public and political figure, one of the creators of the
hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov, was installed (architect Levon Ghalumyan,
sculptor Tigran Arzumanyan, forged copper, total height 4.5 m).
Sakharov Square is
one of the central squares of the capital, a unique “museum” of various
architectural styles and trends of Armenia from the 1920s to the 1960s.
“Scientific Research Center of Historical and Cultural of Heritage” SNCO
Yerevan Municipality
