the night of April 23rd and April 24th in Armenia

Last night thousands marched to the Armenian Genocide Memorial holding candles and torches marking the eve of the 93rd anniversary of the Genocide. Many of marches had banners demanding Turkey recognize the massacres as genocide.
There were other banners saying: "Save Europe! Keep Turkey out of the EU!"

Today President Serzh Sarkisian attended the ceremonies in the late morning at the memorial. I elbowed my way in for position and got shots of him next to the head of the Armenian church who said a prayer for the dead.

I’m not great at estimating crowds but I’d have to say there were at least 500,000 when I was there (I left at 12 noon to upload some images and will return once this is posted). People wait their turn after walking up a long path in the bright sun to lay a flower by the eternal flame at the monument's center. The pile of flowers forming around the eternal flame was already waste high when I left- tulips, lilacs,and carnations making up most of the mix.