Mural of 2020 Artsakh War Hero Albert Hovhannisyan Removed From Yerevan’s Victory Park

The father of Albert Hovhannisyan, the 19-year-old Armenian artilleryman whose photograph became one of the defining images of the 2020 Artsakh War, has condemned the removal of a mural depicting his son from Yerevan’s Victory Park, saying his memory cannot be erased by taking down photographs.

The mural had stood near the park’s main entrance, where visitors regularly left flowers in Hovhannisyan’s memory. It was still visible on Sept. 20 but had disappeared by the time visitors arrived on Sept. 22. 

Yerevan City Hall confirmed that the image was removed as part of renovation work at the park. Officials said the entrance and surrounding walls had not undergone major repairs for more than 30 years and that sections had deteriorated, with stone facing beginning to loosen and fall. The city said the entire surface had to be cleaned before damaged sections could be repaired and rejected claims that Hovhannisyan’s image had been deliberately targeted. 

The explanation did little to ease concerns from Hovhannisyan’s family.

In a Facebook post, his father, Artak Hovhannisyan, accused those responsible of trying to remove his son’s image from public view and said no such effort could erase him from Armenia’s collective memory.

“No matter how hard you try to delete photographs, posts or publications, there is one thing you cannot erase: people’s memory,” he wrote.

Hovhannisyan said photographs of his son have circulated far beyond Armenia, including in Azerbaijani media, making any attempt to erase his image futile.

“Albert Hovhannisyan’s name belongs to his history, his homeland and his people,” he wrote. “His heroism will not become part of someone else’s history because of an editorial decision, a deletion or a rewriting.”

He ended the post with a warning: “Facts can be hidden, photographs can be removed, but history does not forget.”

The dispute echoes an earlier controversy involving another memorial to Hovhannisyan.

In March 2024, his father raised concerns after visiting the plastic reconstructive and microsurgery department at Yerevan Medical Center, which had been named for Albert Hovhannisyan in 2021, and finding that a plaque bearing his son’s name and photograph was no longer in its previous location. 

Hospital officials later said the department had been moved to another floor and the plaque had been relocated with it. CivilNet reported that the plaque was installed at the department’s new location on March 5 after the family publicly raised the issue. The following day, at the parents’ request, it was returned to its former location. 

The latest removal also comes during a broader debate in Yerevan over murals honoring soldiers killed in the 2020 war. In June, a portrait of fallen junior sergeant Haykaz Mkrtchyan was removed from an underpass near the Armenian State University of Economics. City officials said murals and graffiti in public spaces require prior written permission and approval of their designs. 

Hovhannisyan was killed on Oct. 8, 2020, less than two weeks after fighting began between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over Nagorno-Karabakh.

A photograph showing him operating an artillery piece spread widely during the fighting and became one of the most recognizable Armenian images of the 44-day war. He was posthumously awarded Armenia’s Medal for Courage and later received the title Hero of Artsakh.

Six years later, his father says the photograph has outgrown the wall on which it was painted.

“You are trying to erase it among us,” he wrote. “But you will not succeed.”

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