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AGBU Magazine | The Lebanese Armenians

A Salute to Independence

A look back on when anything was possible because we achieved the impossible

Compiled by Gevorg Mnatsakanyan

An Armenian youth raises his Karabakh Movement-inspired fist from the balcony of the Government building as a sign of its nascent independence.
The first issue of Armenian stamps depict the tricolor emanating from the peaks of Mt. Ararat, symbolizing the country’s newfound independence in 1992. Their price 0.2, 2 and 5 in rubles.
Surrounded by his commanders and the base priest, a freedom fighter takes his military oath at the height of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War in the early 1990s.
A bronze statue of Lenin is removed head first from its high pedestal in the eponymous square, renamed Republic Square in the early 1990s. The statue’s remains lie in the courtyard of the National Museum across the square.
Representatives of the Armenian Mission to the United Nations and members of the local Armenian Diaspora witness the raising of the Armenian tri-color at the United Nations in 1992.
In 1993, Hratchya Aslanyan presents his design for the new 5,000 dram note to a special committee of Armenia’s legislature, which later became the National Assembly.
Masses in Yerevan besiege a mobile exchange office across the recently-established Central Bank of Armenia in 1993 to trade their rubles for the country’s new national currency— the dram.
The “YES!” to independence bell published in the September 21, 1991 issue of the Soviet daily “Evening Yerevan” when 99.5 percent of the Armenian public voted to secede from the U.S.S.R.

Originally published in the December 2021 issue of AGBU Magazine. end character

About the AGBU Magazine

AGBU Magazine is one of the most widely circulated English language Armenian magazines in the world, available in print and digital format. Each issue delivers insights and perspective on subjects and themes relating to the Armenian world, accompanied by original photography, exclusive high-profile interviews, fun facts and more.
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