On November 20, 2021, as part of commemorative events on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Gallipoli Society by General Wrangel, Priest Georgy Sergeyev, responsible for the care of the faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate in Turkey, held a memorial service in the church of Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Elena, located on the territory of the summer residence of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Istanbul.
The funeral service was attended by Melisa Murat, a representative of the St. Andrew's Foundation, and compatriots living on the shores of the Bosphorus.
On November 22, Priest Georgy Sergeyev celebrated a memorial service in Gallipoli (modern Gelibolu).
Russian Russian Consulate General in Istanbul, Mayor of Gallipoli Mustafa Ozajar, Secretary General of the Turkish-Russian Public Forum, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ender Arat, Rector of the University of Canakkale, Professor Dr. Sadat Murat, representative of the Russian House in Ankara Roman Penkin, representative of the Turkish-Russian Friendship House of Ankara Erol Ugurlu, representative of the Andrew the First-Called Foundation Melissa Murat, as well as Professor Aydin Ibrahimov, Professor Vedat Chalyshkan, Prefect of Gallipoli Bekir Abadji, President of the Federation of Crimean Tatar NGOs Unver Sel, representative of the Gallipoli CCI Hussein Chakmak, members of the TURUSIA Research Center, Director of Culture and Tourism of the Canakkale region at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey Murat Yilmaz, Russian compatriots living in Gallipoli. The participants of the funeral ceremony laid flowers at the monument to Russian soldiers.
Later that day, a photo exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Gallipoli Society was opened at the Gelibolu Cultural Center.
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In 1920, on 126 ships, almost 150 thousand Russians left the borders of their homeland. Among them were elderly people, women, and children, but most were various military ranks of the Russian army of General P.N. Wrangel. The most numerous 1st Army Corps was located on the Gallipoli Peninsula near the town of Gallipoli, now Gelibolu. The army found itself in a very difficult situation, housed in old, dilapidated barracks and even just tents, which were supposed to serve as a shelter in the winter. Mass diseases began. In the absence of medicines, about 250 people died already in December-January. The number of the army at the beginning of February 1921 was 48,319 people, up to half of this number were officers. As a result of the ongoing tense negotiations with the governments of the Balkan countries on the deployment of army ranks there in the late spring of 1921, it was possible to achieve appropriate agreements, and only after that the gradual relocation of the army began. Thus, the "Gallipoli sitting" that lasted more than a year has come to an end. The last "Gallipoli" left Turkey in May 1923.
Lieutenant General Baron Wrangel founded the Gallipoli Society on November 22, 1921, exactly one year after the arrival of the first units of the Russian army in Gallipoli.
In 2008, the Union of Descendants of Gallipoli was founded in Paris, which set as its main goal the perpetuation of the memory of glorious ancestors. The Union soon expanded its activities to Russia.
In May 2008, the Andrew the First-Called Foundation restored a memorial to 342 Russians who died in 1921 during their stay in Gallipoli. The construction of the monument according to the previous drawings was entrusted to a Turkish company, which undertook to restore it in a short time. A year later, on January 10, 2008, a solemn ceremony of laying a capsule in the foundation of the future monument with an appeal to descendants took place in Gelibolu. In May of the same year, the co-chairs of the Board of Trustees of the program, Vladimir Yakunin and Alexander Sokolov, together with the Governor of the Turkish province of Canakkale, Orhan Kurli, opened the restored monument.