In Soviet times this area was a park, named after Sergei Kirov, a prominent Bolshevik leader. After independence, the park was turned into a national cemetery to the martyrs of the Soviet Union’s crushing of the Azeris’ peaceful protest of 1989. Of those, 137 are buried here. As we entered the cemetery our guide showed us a raised grave and said: “This young woman married her husband six months before he was killed by Russian soldiers on January 23 of 1989. When she found this out, she decided that she did not want to live either. So she drank vinegar and died. She had married this man about 6 months before. The mordehshur (the person who washes the dead before burial) said that the woman was pregnant. So in this grave are buried three persons."