An Armenian tycoon has a private zoo. Now he wants the world’s biggest Jesus statue

Having secured less than 4% of the vote in this month’s parliamentary election, Tsarukyan’s chances of ever leading Armenia look slim, but one of Armenia’s richest and most divisive men remains determined to leave his mark on the country.

His chosen monument: erecting the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ, perched atop a 2,500-metre (8,200ft) mountain overlooking Yerevan.

It is, depending on who you ask, either a celebration of the small Caucasian nation’s ancient Christian heritage or the ultimate expression of one oligarch’s appetite for excess.