20160614_Armenia_7660 Yerevan sRGB by Dan Lundberg

The esplanade leading to the eternal flame at Tsitsernakaberd (Armenian Genocide Memorial & Museum). The wall on the left lists the names of towns and villages where massacres and deportations are known to have taken place. The eternal flame is encircled by twelve slabs representing the twelve lost provinces in present-day Turkey to form the Memorial Sanctuary. The 44m/144ft-high stele on the right symbolizes the national rebirth of Armenians. During and immediately after World War I, the Ottoman Turks followed by the Republic of Turkey killed 1.5 million Armenian civilians. The extermination began on 24 April 1915 when over 200 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders were rounded up. This Armenian annihilation directly led the lawyer Raphael Lemkin to coin the term ‘genocide’ in 1943. Turkey claims that the deaths were just unfortunate casualties of war and not a program of genocide, however. The Armenian Genocide Memorial was built in 1967. The largely subterranean Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute opened in 1995. On Google Earth: Armenian Genocide Memorial & Museum 40°11'8.68"N, 44°29'25.06"E