In 1997, Arshaluis Khanzhiyan was awarded the title "Woman of the Year" in the "Life is Fate" nomination. But this award did not affect the life of Arshaluis in any way. She herself did not understand why she was considered a heroine, tk. her oaths of service to herself were taken for granted, without pretense and falsehood. A few days before her death, in 1998, she became an honorary citizen of the city of Goryachy Klyuch. However, her heart and her whole life will remain forever on the Poklonnaya Polyana tract Podnavisla, among her soldiers. By order of Arshaluis, they buried her next to them. This is how the legend began its life …
Arshaluis entrusted her niece Galina Nikolaevna Khanzhiyan with looking after the graves. Now she is the keeper of Poklonnaya Polyana. Fortunately, the sudden and well-deserved recognition of the great ministry of Arshaluis left its mark not only on the press. A lot of people do not want to remain indifferent. Someone through the labor of their hands, someone financially supported the memorial complex.
Such touching people's love could not fail to attract those in power. I will not go into assumptions about what motivated the officials - the true feeling or desire for a small advertisement, since my faith in the humanity of the bureaucracy begins and ends within the framework of the legislation of the Russian Federation. However, in 2003, after the visit of Governor Alexander Tkachev to Poklonnaya Polyana, an initiative appeared, which is credited to him: to build an Orthodox chapel on the meadow. The chapel was erected, very organically blended into the surrounding landscape and received the name of the chapel of Dimitri of Thessaloniki. Alas, services in it are held only on memorable dates due to the inaccessibility of the place.
Almost simultaneously with the Russian chapel, the Surb Khach chapel (which means "Holy Cross") of the Armenian Apostolic Church was erected. This chapel, built according to the Armenian architectural religious canons, also blended into the general landscape of the meadow and the mountain hanging over it, as if it had stood here for more than one hundred years. To the left of the entrance is an elegant khachkar (a type of Armenian architecture, which is a stone stele with a carved image of a cross).
All this time, attention was paid to the tract simply by caring citizens, who are now called volunteers. In my humble opinion, this definition is incorrect. These are just our compatriots, who have a conscience (now in short supply). These are the guys from the search teams, these are the students, these are just local residents. However, the recognition of the merits of Arshaluis herself, which are more needed by the living than she, who had never considered herself a heroine, in the form of a monument to her was then only an idea.
For many years the entire Krasnodar Territory has been collecting funds within the framework of the "Monument for Arshaluys" campaign organized through the "Kubanskie Novosti" newspaper. The honored artist of Russia, Soviet sculptor Vladimir Andreevich Zhdanov (b. 1937) took on the monument itself. His sculptures are quite famous - they stand in Krasnodar (a monument to Alexander Pushkin), and in Goryachy Klyuch (alley of Heroes of the Soviet Union), etc. Working on the sculpture Arshaluis, Zhdanov said in one of his interviews: “This sculpture is moral. She always sang what is beautiful. She doesn’t like negative things, she doesn’t tolerate cartoon. The sculpture should be serious, sublime, if you like, moral."
Alas, Vladimir Andreevich did not have time to finish his work. He passed away on November 14, 2014. His work was continued by his students. Finally, by 2015, the monument was ready, and on November 10 of the same year it was erected in Goryachy Klyuch. Almost simultaneously with this, the absolute twin of the monument in Goryachy Klyuch was installed in the Podnavisla tract, where Arshaluis and her soldiers rest.
However, one of the extremely touching original monuments of Arshaluys was a biographical documentary film with elements of a fictional film, which was called "Arshaluys". Last year, HAYK, a small local Krasnodar film company of the Armenian diaspora, announced a fundraising campaign for a film about the keeper of Poklonnaya Polyana. The creators of the tape were a young director who graduated from the Krasnodar State Institute of Culture and Arts, Ernest Arutyunov, co-writer Christopher Mkhitaryan, and producer Eduard Arutyunov.
The picture itself was filmed, of course, in the Podnavisla tract, because the Arshaluis house still stands in the same place. The film crew was consulted by Galina Nikolaevna. In total, about 40 people were involved on the set. It is noteworthy that in fact all the money raised was spent exclusively on the technical side of the process, since the professional actors in the group could be counted on one hand. The vast majority of the people involved in the filming worked with pure enthusiasm. As a result, it turned out, as they say, a truly national cinema.
Of course, the film is not designed for some kind of film festival laudatory brooms. However, this is rather a praise, considering what fierce slag is now nominated for various awards. Despite the fact that sometimes you can feel a touch of amateur performance in the frame, this does not spoil the picture. Sometimes it's even the other way around - you notice that the film was shot with a deep sense of belonging, without a touch of bureaucracy. In addition, it is especially pleasant that the history of Arshaluis has passed the naughty grabbing hands of our "masters" from cinema like Khabensky or Uchitel. And, of course, the fact that at the very time when enthusiasts were embodying on the screen an amazing example of humanism, honor and devotion, our Ministry of Culture, led by an unlicensed copy of Harry Potter, with a fantastic cash flow, funded a project about the bed adventures of a lustful ballerina and a walker. an emperor born in the fevered brains of crooked-handed scriptwriters.
However, it would seem that there is no need to worry about the memorial itself. Attention from the public, from two churches that periodically conduct services in remote chapels, from search engines who periodically reburial the remains found in the Podnavisla region at Poklonnaya Polyana, etc. But the modern era sometimes dictates its own rules, or rather, introduces the sweet scent of cannibalistic absurdity.
For example, some lovers of liquefying the brain with an excessive amount of alcohol with a barbecue snack in nature have long chosen the area of the Podnavisla tract. This semi-finished product of modern society, which took the advertising slogan "take everything from life" seriously (while keeping silent about the consequences in the form of AIDS, cirrhosis, cancer or a long stay in not the most elite society), of course, does not know, and does not want to know history of this place, as well as the entire history, if it is not the history of the browser or bank card transactions.
Now a barrier has been installed at the entrance to the Podnavisla tract, the roads are covered with gravel, all the barbecues and spontaneous fireplaces have been dismantled. It is also planned to give the territory of the memorial a special status in order to obtain legal protection. But even regular subbotniks cannot completely resolve the issue of the invasion of drunken degenerates, who are like Kipling's Banderlog.
However, the main and most painful blow to the memory of Arshaluys was struck … by domestic officials. After all, we sometimes forget that these same characters of Kipling, brought up by the "values" of the 90s, have positions, posts and all kinds of ranks. So, on the eve of the Victory Day celebrations, the Department of Property Relations of the Krasnodar Territory sent a notification to Galina Khanzhiyan with the requirement to remove the family burial from the agricultural land within 30 days. I am translating from the bureaucratic into Russian: to throw the remains of the keeper of the tract away from the tract itself.
Deputy Head Mikhail Sinitsyn and specialist Anastasia Mikhailyuk took direct part in making such a “wise” and extremely “important” decision for the development of agricultural activities. The impenetrable caveman formalism, coupled with the zero level of education, in fact, bore fruit. Against this background, sporadic attempts by state structures to carry out patriotic actions seem to be attempts to mend the ship's hull with duct tape after a torpedo attack, which was the loss of ideology and the education system.
Fortunately, the information wave that was raised by both just not indifferent citizens and entire organizations (for example, the Armenian diaspora) forced the Krasnodar bureaucrats to quickly curtail their activities in relation to the grave of Arshaluis. At the moment, the issue of a new legal status of the land of the tract is being resolved.
Now the memorial continues to keep the peace of the soldiers and their defenders. I hope this will continue to be so. After all, hardly anyone will argue that for a whole people, when in the whirlpool of time it can get lost, it is necessary to have a fulcrum. One of such points is the Podnavisla tract, lost in the mountains.
