PanArmenian News
Feb 3 2005
VANDALS DAMAGED MONUMENT TO ARMENIANS – FOUNDERS OF RUSSIAN
BUDENNOVSK
03.02.2005 16:45
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ As reported by Yerkramas Armenian newspaper being
issued in Krasnodar, vandals damaged a monument to Armenians – the
founders of the city of Budennovsk (Stavropol region). The opening of
the complex to the Founding Fathers of the City of Holy Cross was
held October 17, 2004. The complex is composed of an arch 8 meters in
height, a khachkar (cross-stone) and a stone composition. The Russian
and Armenian sides of the monument were damaged: numbers 1799-2004
were disrupted from the Russian side, and the same figures and almost
the whole of the Surb Khach inscription – from the Armenian. As
written by the newspaper, what happened may be a consequence of
anti-Caucasian moods in general or a sally by satanists. The
newspaper also says that leaders of the local Armenian community,
which has initiated the erection of the monument, now think over the
problem of making the part of the monument, that contains the text,
as they say, “anti-vandal”. The city of Surb Khach (Holy Cross, now
Budennovsk) was founded in 1799 by Armenians and Tats of Armenian
Christian belief – migrants from Karabakh, Derbent and other sites in
compliance with a patent of Russian Emperor Paul I.