Glory Memorial

The Glory Memorial is a former memorial located in Kutaisi, Georgia and designed by Merab Berdzenishvili. It was dedicated to the memory of those who died during World War II and featured a soldier on a horse stabbing a German soldier with a spear, an allusion to St. George slaying a dragon. In 2009, the monument was demolished to make way for a new parliament building, killing two bystanders with falling debris. The monument was ordered demolished by then-President Mikheil Saakashvili, and was originally aimed to coincide with his forty-second birthday, but was moved up two days to avoid protests. After the structure was demolished, Vladimir Putin, then Prime Minister of Russia pledged to rebuild the monument in Moscow, stating that the monument had "artistic value" and wanted to work with the monument's original creator to rebuild the monument, an honor which Merab declined.