Editing Yerevan (section)

===Soviet rule===
{{See also|Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic}}
[[File:Mayr Hayrenik.jpg|thumb|right|[[Mother Armenia]] erected in 1967, replacing the monumental statue of [[Joseph Stalin]]]]
[[File:David of Sasun Yerevan.jpg|thumb|''[[David of Sassoun (statue)|David of Sassoun]]'' and the [[Yerevan railway station]].]]

The [[Red Army|Red Soviet Army]] invaded Armenia on 29 November 1920 from the northeast. On 2 December 1920, Yerevan along with the other territories of the [[First Republic of Armenia|Republic of Armenia]], became part of [[Soviet Russia]], known as the [[Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic]]. However, the Armenian SSR formed the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR) together with the [[Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic]] and the [[Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic]], between 1922 and 1936.

Under the Soviet rule, Yerevan became the first among the cities in the Soviet Union for which a general plan was developed. The "General Plan of Yerevan" developed by the academician [[Alexander Tamanian]], was approved in 1924. It was initially designed for a population of 150,000.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}} The city was quickly transformed into a modern industrial metropolis of over one million people.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}} New educational, scientific and cultural institutions were founded as well.

Tamanian incorporated national traditions with contemporary urban construction. His design presented a radial-circular arrangement that overlaid the existing city and incorporated much of its existing street plan. As a result, many historic buildings were demolished, including churches, mosques, the [[Erivan Fortress]], baths, bazaars and [[caravanserai]]s. Many of the districts around central Yerevan were named after former Armenian communities that were destroyed by the [[Ottoman Turks]] during the [[Armenian genocide]]. The districts of Arabkir, Malatia-Sebastia and Nork Marash, for example, were named after the towns [[Arapgir|Arabkir]], [[Malatya]], [[Sivas, Turkey|Sebastia]], and [[Kahramanmaraş|Marash]], respectively. After the end of [[World War II]], [[Germans|German]] [[POW]]s were used to help in the construction of new buildings and structures, such as the Kievyan Bridge.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

Within the years, the central [[Kentron district]] has become the most developed area in Yerevan, something that created a significant gap compared with other districts in the city. Most of the educational, cultural and scientific institutions were centred in the Kentron district.

In 1965, during the commemorations of the fiftieth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Yerevan was the location of a [[1965 Yerevan demonstrations|demonstration]], the first such demonstration in the Soviet Union, to demand recognition of the Genocide by the Soviet authorities.<ref>{{cite book|last=Suny|first=Ronald Grigor|author-link=Ronald Grigor Suny|title=The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union|url=https://archive.org/details/revengepastnatio00suny|url-access=limited|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=1993|location=Stanford|page=[https://archive.org/details/revengepastnatio00suny/page/n144 122]|isbn=0-8047-2247-1}}</ref> In 1968, the city's 2,750th anniversary was commemorated.

Yerevan played a key role in the Armenian national democratic movement that emerged during the [[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]] era of the 1980s. The reforms of [[Glasnost]] and [[Perestroika]] opened questions on issues such as the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the environment, [[Russification]], corruption, democracy, and eventually independence. At the beginning of 1988, nearly one million Armenians from several regions of Armenia engaged in demonstrations concerning these subjects, centered in the city's Theater Square (currently [[Freedom Square, Yerevan|Freedom Square]]).<ref>{{cite book|last=Malkasian|first=Mark|title=Gha-ra-bagh!: The Emergence of the National Democratic Movement in Armenia|publisher=Wayne State University Press|year=1996|page=41|isbn=0-8143-2605-6}}</ref>