Molten Azerbaijani coin to incorporated into Moscow monument Photo

CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev has presented coins collected from all member states, including Azerbaijan, to a charity foundation that is overseeing the construction of a national monument in Moscow to commemorate veterans and their service to their countries.

It is part of the international project “Living Memory of Grateful Generations” that is overseen by Belarusian paralympic athlete Alexey Talai, Caliber.Az reports citing local media.

The head of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) emphasized the symbolic significance of the contributions to the project that will be unveiled Moscow's Poklonnaya Hill, stating: “Each coin is a gesture of gratitude, a fragment of memory that unites people from different countries.”

Since February 2021, the Alexey Talai Charitable Foundation has been implementing the project "Children of Belarus — to veterans and future generations" in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, and the Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War. One of the key events of this initiative is the creation and installation of the national memorial sign “Living Memory of Grateful Generations” in Belarusian cities Minsk and Brest, as well as Moscow. The core idea behind these monuments is to unite veterans, contemporaries, and future generations.

The “Living Memory of Grateful Generations” project has resonated with hundreds of thousands of families across the CIS. Among the participants are Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who contributed commemorative coins on behalf of their families.

The first monument was installed in Minsk in 2022, the second near the walls of the Brest Fortress in 2024, with the third to appear in Moscow. What makes the Moscow monument unique is its public concept: anyone could contribute a coin from their family to the alloy used to create an element of the monument. The same alloy will also be used to cast commemorative ingots for museums in Belarus, Russia, and other CIS countries.

By Nazrin Sadigova