Guba Genocide Memorial Complex, Memorial complex and museum in Guba, Azerbaijan.
Guba Genocide Memorial Complex is a museum dedicated to documenting mass killings that took place in the region during the early 1900s. The facility houses photographs, written testimonies, and archival materials arranged to help visitors understand these historical events through primary sources.
Excavations in 2006–2007 uncovered mass graves in Guba linked to the 1918 killings. On 30 December 2009 President Ilham Aliyev ordered the creation of a memorial complex, built from 2009 to 2013. He and his wife Mehriban Aliyeva opened it on 18 September 2013.
The exhibition opens with photographs of peaceful Quba life before 1918, showing Azerbaijanis, Lezgins, Jews and other peoples living side by side. It then presents the 1918 killings in five districts of Baku Governorate, with documents from the Extraordinary Investigation Commission of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and a map of the 1918–1920 republic.
The complex lies in Guba and is run under Azerbaijan's Ministry of Culture. Its three parts follow one route: an entrance shaped like a pointed blade, the main hall with the black memorial stone at its centre, then a matching exit. The exhibition's 19 sections carry labels in Azerbaijani, Russian and English, and a documentary film runs continuously in the hall.
The two pointed structures at the entrance and exit are shaped like blades, their sharp tips rising from below ground to suggest that the truth could not stay buried. The design omits all ornament to convey the silence of mourning, and the complex is built entirely of raw concrete.
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