The authorities of Kutaisi, Georgia’s second largest city, are about to complete the dismantling of the Military Honor Memorial, which was erected in the city of the former Soviet republic in honor of those who died in WWII. It seems that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili decided to follow the example of the government of Estonia, where the Bronze Soldier Memorial became a symbol of state vandalism.
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| The War Memorial in Kutaisi, Georgia |
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 BREAKING NEWS |
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The works to dismantle the memorial in Kutaisi began on December 12 and will be finished on December 20 or 21. The Resonansi, a Georgian newspaper, wrote that the dismantling of the memorial was supposed to coincide with Saakashvili’s birthday on December 21. It is worthy of note that the birth date of the most famous Georgian of times – Joseph Stalin – is December 21st too.
A new building of the Georgian parliament is planned to be built on the site instead of the war memorial. Deputies of the Georgian parliament approved Saakashvili’s proposal to divide the functions of the nation’s capital between Tbilisi and Kutaisi.
The memorial, designed by sculptor Merab Berdzenishvili, was unveiled in the beginning of the 1980s. The memorial is dedicated to the Georgians who defended the Soviet Union, their motherland, during the years of the Great Patriotic War. Over 700,000 Georgians took part in the war; every second one of them returned home.
It does no seem to be likely that the authorities of Kutaisi could not find a good site for the new building of the parliament anywhere else. Officials of the city administration released the following statement:
“The memorial was plundered during the 1990s, and it is impossible to recreate it. It is located near the territory where we plan to build a complex of building of the Parliament of Georgia. Therefore, we decided to dismantle the memorial. A monument honoring the Georgians who died in the Great Patriotic War will be erected in another location of Kutaisi.”
It seems that it is better for Georgia to build something new rather than restore something old. The government of Estonia did nearly the same – they relocated the monument to Soviet warriors, the Bronze Soldier, in Tallinn. In Georgia, the memorial is an obstacle for the parliament, whereas in Estonia the monument was an obstacle to a bus stop that was placed there soon afterwards. The Bronze Solder was moved to a war cemetery and the mass grave underneath the monument was desecrated.
President Saakashvili could protect the monument, but he intends to enjoy the landscape without it.
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