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Tsitsernakaberd is the official memorial to the Armenian genocide victims in Yerevan, Armenia. It was opened in 1967 after a mass demonstration that took place in Yerevan on April 24, 1965, on the 50th anniversary of the deportation of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals from Constantinople that marked the beginning of the genocide.[1][2] After Armenia's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the memorial became a part of official ceremonies. Since then, almost every foreign official who visited Armenia included a visit to the memorial to pay tribute to the victims of the genocide.[3] A visit to Tsitsernakaberd often includes a tour in the nearby museum. Some notable visitors have planted trees at the memorial.
A wide range of politicians, artists, musicians, athletes, and religious figures have visited the memorial. The most notable ones include Presidents of Russia (Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev), France (Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande), Ukraine, Czech Republic, Poland, Greece, Georgia, Iran, Belarus, Romania, Lebanon, Croatia, Serbia, and Prime Ministers of Bulgaria, Czech Republic and other countries. Foreign Ministers of many countries (including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several high-ranking officials of the European Union — including José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy) — have honored the victims by visiting Tsitsernakaberd. Other visitors include Pope John Paul II in 2001, Pope Francis in 2016, the Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger, the Primate of All England Rowan Williams, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill I of Moscow, World Chess champion Vladimir Kramnik, World football champion Youri Djorkaeff, English rock star Ian Gillan, Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, French actors Gérard Depardieu and Alain Delon, Nobel Prize winner in Physics Zhores Alferov.
No current Turkish state official has visited Tsitsernakaberd.
- ^ John Noble; Michael Kohn; Danielle Systermans (2008). Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan. Footscray, Vic.: Lonely Planet. p. 156. ISBN 9781741044775.
- ^ Payaslian, Simon (2007). The history of Armenia: from the origins to the present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 135. ISBN 9781403974679.
- ^ Kinzer, Stephen (2008). Crescent and star: Turkey between two worlds. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 91. ISBN 9780374531409.