Peaceful march honoring innocent victims of Sumgait pogrom held in Tbilisi

On February 25, 2024, a peaceful march honoring the innocent victims of the Sumgait pogrom took place in Tbilisi at the initiative of the Armenian Community of Georgia NGO and the Hayartun Educational and Cultural Center of the Armenian Diocese of Georgia.

A group of Armenians with the flags of Georgia, Armenia and Artsakh marched from the adjacent area of St. Ejmiatsin Church in the Avlabari district to Saint George’s Church, where His Grace Bishop Kirakos Davtyan served a memorial service after the end of a Sunday liturgy.

The liturgy was attended by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to Georgia Ashot Smbatyan, diplomats of the Embassy, editor of the “Vrastan” newspaper Van Bayburtyan, and representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia in Tbilisi.

The Primate of the Armenian Diocese of Georgia delivered a speech:

“We remember Sumgait, the genocide, and the 44-day war, but what are we doing by remembering them? What steps are we taking? Unfortunately, we are doing nothing. Our nation today, like the prodigal son, takes a part of its life and wastes it. It does not want to keep it all, and only by remembering and cursing the enemy will we increase the days of remembrance. We rejoice when some country condemns all this, but this is nothing. When a small insect gets caught in a spider’s web, it gets tangled and stuck, and when the insect is big, it tears it up and comes out; therefore, no one can ever condemn the strong. To condemn the strong, you need to become stronger than them, but we seem to have accepted everything. Come to your senses; unite so that we can protect everything we have today.”

Events honoring the memory of the innocent victims of the Sumgait pogrom continued at the Hayartun Educational and Cultural Center of the Armenian Diocese of Georgia, with the head of the center, Evgenia Markosyan, giving opening remarks and then Enok Tadevosyan giving a lecture.

A former resident of Baku came to the screening of the film about the Sumgait pogrom, and he told about how he and other families survived those days.

“The Sumgait pogrom is one of the most difficult and tragic events in our history, the impunity of which also led to the 1918 pogrom in Baku, the pogrom in Shushi, the 1990 pogrom again in Baku, the Maraga massacre, the granting of the title of national hero to Safarov for the brutal murder of Lieutenant Margaryan, the brutal 44-day war, and ethnic cleansing in Artsakh—the atrocities known to all of us during the war, which are widely covered on social media and can be found by everyone. All this shows that we need to learn lessons from history and unite because the Turks have not changed. Their goal is to annihilate the Armenians from this region, and those forces that are trying to mislead our people and convince them otherwise are all enemies of our people,” said Arthur Mirzoyan, Chair of the Armenian Community of Georgia NGO.

The event concluded with the speech of Rev. Fr. Kirakos Simonyan, who called on people to be closer to God and the Church and unite to resist evil and injustice.