Date of event: 29 May 2018, 12:00    
May 29, 2018 on the hill Mont- Spen (commune Aguilcourt, Department of Aisne, the French Republic) solemn opening ceremony of the obelisk to the soldiers of the 3rd brigade of the Russian Expeditionary Force in France will take place.
The opening ceremony will be attended by: Alexander Barkov, Director of the Department on the Management Affairs to the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation; Alexey Meshkov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to France; descendants of soldiers and officers of the Russian Expeditionary Force; French and Russian politicians; representatives of public organizations of the two countries.

The obelisk was installed by the Russian Military Historical Society (RMHS), the architect is - Konstantin Fomin.

During the First World War, the commune Courcy was liberated from German troops by the Russian Expeditionary Force (REF), which fought in France as part of its allied commitments. From April 16 to 19, 1917, the 1st and 3rd brigades of the REFs fully accomplished their assigned tasks, seizing a number of German defense points, capturing a significant number of soldiers and officers. For the shown heroism many fighters of REF were awarded with high French and Russian awards. Of the 20,000 soldiers of the REF - about 5000 died. Some of the surviving fighters returned to their homeland, some remained in France.

Additional information: Nadezhda Usmanova, +7 910 465 6445, unn@rvio.org

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To date, there are more than 200 burials of Russian soldiers and officers in France, this is more than 11,000 dead soldiers. The search work continues. In 2017, the International Military-Historical Expedition of the Russian Expeditionary Force organized by RMHS "Russian Expeditionary Force. Courcy" took place. The search group of the RMHS discovered the remains of a soldier of the Russian Expeditionary Force, who died here in April 1917. They discovered hundreds of household items, uniforms and armaments of opposing armies as well. The project was implemented by the Russian Military-Historical Society in support of the initiative of the French historian-enthusiast Pierre Malinowski. A group of Russian search engines brought together scientists and volunteer students from different regions of Russia.

In 2015, in memory of the feat of the REF, the Russian Military Historical Society in the center of Courcy, a monument to the "Russian Soldier" (sculptor Alexander Taratinov) was erected.

"Our countries were allies in the two most terrible military conflicts in the history of our civilization - the First and Second World Wars," said Vladimir Medinsky at the opening ceremony of the monument, the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Chairman of the RMHS.
 Reference about the activities of The Russian Military Historical Society