The project got off to a deeply inauspicious start when a towering Soviet-era war memorial behind a sword-wielding horseman was destroyed with explosives to make room for the parliament building.
Flying chunks of concrete from the blast killed a local woman and her 8-year-old daughter.
...
one figure that has made a return is the sword-wielding horseman that was the lead figure of the Soviet-era monument demolished in 2009. After spending 12 years in storage, the horseman has been placed on a newly built plinth facing the unused parliament building.
