“This will be a museum of toratalira…” - the famous Ukrainian thinker Vitaliy Klitschko optimistically assessed the prospects for the decommunization of Kyiv. Difficult words are given to the mayor of the Ukrainian capital with difficulty, but it is known that the authorities are preparing in the near future to demolish the largest monuments - the Motherland and the Friendship of Peoples Arch. "Lenta.ru" understood why officials took up arms against them.

On May 25, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko boasted that 150 streets in the city had already been decommunized, and only a few remained to be given new names. And he added that all the monuments to Soviet leaders had been demolished in Kyiv. “We decided to collect all the monuments in one place. This will be of interest to historians. It will be a museum of toratalira…” - on compound word a former boxer on the air of one of the radio stations. The presenter came to his aid: he pronounced the word "totalitarianism" twice in syllables.

Dmitry Belotserkovets, Klitschko's landscaping adviser, spoke in more detail about the immediate plans. According to him, for complete decommunization, it is necessary to demolish the monument to the Chekists, the fence on the Paton bridge (made in the form of ears of corn from the emblem of the USSR), the wall in the Teatralnaya metro station with a bronze bust of Lenin, the monument to the red commander Shchors and the monument, which is considered calling card cities, - motherland. Belotserkovets, that the decision on this monument should be made by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. In addition, the official noted that the Government will allocate money for the demolition of the Peoples' Friendship Arch.

Later, the Department of Urban Improvement of Kyiv reported that Soviet monuments could be placed at Kiev's Zhuliany airport. In addition, negotiations are underway with the National aviation university about supplementing their exposition on open area these monuments. “The museum will help generations not to forget the catastrophic actions and their consequences that the Soviet empire brought to the Ukrainian land,” Belotserkovets concluded.

ATO instead of friendship of peoples

The immediate goal of the Kyiv authorities is a monument to the Chekists on Lybidskaya Square, which is a vertical stele of granite with the faces of two fighters of the revolution carved on it. Nationalists and public utilities have already made three attempts to knock down the monument, but have not yet been successful. First, the activists of the Azov regiment failed. Them managed only destroy the fence of the monument. They covered the statue itself with inscriptions and doused it with paint. On May 23, the public utilities removed the plinth slabs, but did not figure out what to do with the 80-ton stele itself. May 25, the day of memory of the leader Ukrainian nationalists times civil war Simon Petliura, they returned to the Chekists again. This time the excavator with its bucket tried to knock out a pedestal from under the monument. Kyiv authorities said they did not know who owns the equipment. “We planned to go the civilized way: develop a dismantling project, approve its estimate by the decision of the Kyiv City Council session and move the monument to the museum of monuments Soviet era. But someone decided differently,” said Andrei Fischuk, a representative of the mayor’s office.

The 62-meter sculpture Motherland rises on the slopes of the Dnieper and is visible in Kyiv from everywhere. This monument is part of the Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War II. In one hand of the statue - a 16-meter sword, in the other - a shield with the coat of arms of the USSR. It is clear that it is difficult and costly to demolish such a hulk, so the officials had another idea - to replace the Soviet emblem on the shield with a Ukrainian trident. Experts warn that it is extremely difficult to carry out such work. The size of Soviet symbols on the shield is 6 by 4 meters, weight is about 8 tons. The sculptors say that the dismantling of the coat of arms can damage the stability of the entire structure: the arm with the shield is a counterbalance to the arm with the sword, the weight of each element is strictly verified.

The Arch of Friendship of Peoples was installed in Kyiv in 1982 in honor of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Under the arch is a statue: a Ukrainian and a Russian raise a ribbon with the Order of Friendship of Peoples. The need to demolish the monument was announced by the Minister of Culture of Ukraine Yevhen Nishchuk. In his opinion, a monument to the soldiers of the ATO (anti-terrorist operation, as military operations in the east of the country are officially called) should be erected at this place. approx. "Tapes.ru"). Later, the department clarified that they would still think about the fate of the arch itself, but the statue would definitely be dismantled. “Obviously, this particular monument will look great as an example of socialist art in a potential Museum totalitarian regimes”, - Nishchuk’s press secretary Yulia Datsenko.

The demolition of the arch has already been discussed. In September 2015, such an initiative was made by the chief architect of Kyiv Sergey Tselovalnik. According to him, the arch is useless because " Russian troops came to the Ukrainian land with tanks and goes real war". In addition, Tselovalnik did not see artistic merit in this structure. However, he soon lost his position and did not have time to bring his idea to life.

Mina under the country

Experts say that in the near future the Soviet monuments in Ukraine will end, but the struggle will continue - the monuments of the imperial period of history will be demolished. “The current pro-Maidan government has no social, economic successes, nothing to boast of in matters of European integration, the fight against corruption, and the growth of the welfare of citizens. They portray life in a new way with the help of symbolic steps - a war with monuments, changing signs, city names, ”says Andrey Zolotarev, a political scientist and head of the Third Sector analytical center.

According to him, Kyiv authorities act in the style of the Bolsheviks, with whom they seem to be fighting. “They also easily rewrote history, gave everything their own names. "Let's renounce the old world." The current leaders of Ukraine declare adherence to European values, but they are not interested in people's opinion either. The Bolsheviks, however, had their own project for the future, their own real achievements. The current Ukrainian government professes only corruption and social genocide. There was a motherland, now there will be a motherland for Nadia-Savchenko and other Maidan activists,” the expert notes.

Historian Viktor Pirozhenko believes that de-Russification lies at the heart of decommunization. "We see that most monuments to Soviet political leaders were destroyed, but no one is going to stop the process. The struggle will continue until the complete victory over the common past with Russia. The task of the current regime is to break the continuity with the Ukrainian SSR, with Russian Empire. A new Ukrainian political nation must be created on anti-Russian soil. Decommunization is only the first layer of this campaign, now the nationalists will be engaged in de-Russification,” he emphasizes.

In his opinion, in the event of the Friendship Arch being demolished, the question of assessing the activities of the hetman and commander Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who was the engine of the process of reunification with Russia, will arise. “In Kyiv, they don’t understand that by refusing the past, the country renounces the future. During the years of the existence of the Ukrainian SSR, parts of the territories of the RSFSR, Poland, Romania, Bessarabia and Czechoslovakia were transferred to it. The further, the less stable the foundation of the Ukrainian state becomes. It's a ticking time bomb. The process of decommunization is destroying Ukraine as a historical entity,” the historian sums up.

In Ukraine, there are still a thousand monuments to Lenin, which are to be demolished. However, the nationalists promise to take on Shchors and ... Motherland. "Strana" found out how much money you can get for one party leader?

"We won't demolish it, so we'll set fire to the tires"

Once upon a time, experts calculated that "Motherland" in Kyiv could stand for 150 years and withstand an earthquake of 8-9 points. But will the 450-ton monument withstand the pressure of the nationalists who intend to demolish it?

“This is, of course, a difficult action, but the Motherland must be demolished,” OUN leader Nikolai Kokhanivsky is sure. “But technically it will be difficult for us to do it. For now, we plan to start an information campaign around it, since it is a monument to the occupation regime. On our own we will not demolish it, but in any case, some tires near it can be set on fire. We do not do everything ourselves. For example, we simulated the demolition of the monument to the Chekists several times, and, in the end, forced the authorities to dismantle it. In addition "We intend to demolish Shchors," the head of the OUN, Nikolai Kokhanivsky, told Strana. "When? I won't tell you. How it will turn out. It will be a multi-way combination. But we are not abandoning our plans. So far, I will not announce any dates."

Earlier there was information that the nationalists intend to demolish the monument to Shchors this Friday - on Pokrova, when nationalist marches are planned in Kyiv.

In total, according to Kokhanivsky, he personally had a hand in five monuments - Petrovsky near the Dynamo stadium, Krupskaya in a park on the Left Bank. And a dozen more monuments were brought down by his fighters.

Recall that the nationalists tried to carry out the last action to demolish the monument on Independence Day on August 24. Then Shchors in the Mariinsky Park was to become their victim. However, the police did not let the OUN to the place of the alleged battle.

Kravchuk is not against the demolition of Shchors, but the Motherland cannot be touched

Meanwhile, the Kyiv Shchors has a very interesting story. It was written off from the first president of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk.

True, as the first president assured Strana, he would not feel sorry for the former commandant of Kyiv.

- Once I was walking along Khreshchatyk, and a short, hunchbacked man came up to me and spoke to me. It was the sculptor Lysenko. He said he works in art institute and he needs nature. And he promised to pay 10 rubles per hour. Super crazy money. Then it was possible to dine for two rubles. Good to have lunch. I visited Lysenko's apartment on Proriznaya. But I was not at all interested in how Shchors would look. I was technical about this work. I came to Lysenko because he was very good man, deep, told a lot of interesting things, regularly paid. What happens in practice with decommunization - I do not know, I have not studied. But the law is right and necessary.

On the contrary, Valery Shvetsov, one of the sculptors of the monument to the Motherland, who worked first under the guidance of sculptors Yevgeny Vuchetich, and then Vasily Borodai, is sure that under no circumstances should the monument be demolished.

“Firstly, this is terrible stupidity,” Shvetsov was indignant. – According to UNESCO, this monument is included in the list of 300 best monuments millennium! I don't know who can raise their hand... And, secondly, in order to mount the monument, they assembled a special crane, which no longer exists. Demolition of the monument with a conventional excavator will not work. Is it to blow up atomic bomb. What nonsense...

Motherland, indeed, unique monument. Its height is 102 meters, higher than the Statue of Liberty in the USA. By the way, it was originally planned to cover the monument with gold leaf, but later this idea was abandoned.

"Lenin's head is priceless"

However, even without gold leaf, the monuments are not cheap.

So, it was worth the radicals in December 2013 to demolish the monument to Lenin in Bessarabka in Kyiv, as right there on the website free ads slando (now olx) the following message appeared:

"I will sell a piece of the last Kyiv Lenin, who was knocked down on December 8, 2013. The monument has been on Shevchenko Boulevard in Kyiv since December 5, 1946. The monument was made of a rare material - Karelian quartzite, which was used to build the Mausoleum in Moscow. The cost of Lenin's particles depends on the part of the body and weight. A palm costs 1,000 hryvnias, a piece of a hand — 750 hryvnias. Pieces of legs and torso are sold by weight — 50 hryvnias per kilo. The head is priceless. Offer your price for it."

Meanwhile, back in July, Deputy Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kirilenko reported that since December 2013, 1,018 Ilyichs and 148 monuments and monuments to other Soviet figures had been dismantled in Ukraine. And he noted that more than a thousand monuments and monuments to Lenin still remain to be demolished.

80 thousand for Ilyich

Meanwhile, it is not clear where the already dismantled monuments go.

So, in the Department of Urban Improvement of the Kyiv City Administration, “Strana” was told that they were being taken to the Aviation Museum.

— This decision was made at the board. Perhaps someday, a separate museum will be created from them. But there is no solution for this.

Moreover, as the creation of a museum, as Strana found out, according to by and large from nothing.

- We were brought only two monuments: the Chekists and the bust of Primakov. We had an agreement that we would take them for temporary storage. We did not give consent to other monuments. We have nowhere to store them,” Anatoly Fatov, deputy director of the museum, told Strana.

People complain that the monuments are demolished completely uncontrollably.

- That's how it was with us. Some guys wandered drunk around the regional center, caused an accident, filled up two monuments to Lenin, - one of the residents of Dobropolye, Zaporozhye region, told Strana.

Art critics do not rule out that the Ilyichs are sold for scrap.

- Imagine a monument to Lenin, and even in major city. It is either marble, or granite, or bronze,” says Anna Yarovaya. - Whole, hardly anyone needs it, although I know a person who once collected monuments of Lenin and exhibited them in his dacha. But it is much more profitable to hand it over as scrap.

Scrap of ferrous and non-ferrous metals costs 3800-4000 hryvnia per ton, and marble is even more expensive. That is, for a monument weighing 20-30 tons (as much, for example, Lenin weighed), you can get from 80 thousand hryvnia.

Marx lived, Marx is alive

Meanwhile, some monuments of the Soviet era still remain in Kyiv. So, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya survived in the park at the intersection of Gonchar and Bogdan Khmelnitsky streets.

In September, some vandals tried to desecrate it, the monument was knocked off the pedestal, but now it decorates the square again.

Karl Marx also survived. And, not just anywhere, but at the Roshen factory.

Meanwhile, many of Korchinsky's subscribers came to the defense of the author of Capital.

The Youth Policy and Tourism Committee of the Volgograd Administration, the Department of Foreign, Regional and Foreign Economic Relations of the Volgograd Administration and the GKU VO "Tourism Development Agency" announced a competition for the best option new brand of Volgograd. Both individual authors and firms involved in solving similar problems are invited to participate in the competition. the main objective this competition, to save the region and Volgograd itself from the "print" of the Battle of Stalingrad. Most contemporaries have an idea of ​​our city solely as a place where the course of the Great Patriotic War was turned. Where hundreds of thousands of our compatriots perished in battles with fascism.

According to the terms of the competition, it is necessary to create a symbol of the Volgograd region, positioning Volgograd and the region, which can be used as a symbol of the city and the region, to promote the Volgograd region as a center of tourism, culture, industry, sports, and to promote the recognition of Volgograd and the region as a whole. According to officials, the Motherland and everything connected with the Great Patriotic War, is no longer very relevant for the region”: “Motherland is still a legacy of the Soviet era. Unfortunately, for many, it is associated with something heavy, tragic and mournful. Especially for foreigners. And we would like our region to be perceived as a pleasant area for recreation.” end of quote. Technical parameters of the statue.
The sculpture is made of blocks of prestressed reinforced concrete - 5500 tons of concrete and 2400 tons of metal structures (without the base on which it stands).
The total height of the monument is 85-87 meters. It is installed on a concrete foundation 16 meters deep. The height of the female figure is 52 meters (weight - over 8 thousand tons).
The statue stands on a slab only 2 meters high, which rests on the main foundation. This foundation is 16 meters high, but it is almost invisible - most of it is hidden underground. The statue stands freely on the slab, like a chess piece on a board.
The thickness of the reinforced concrete walls of the sculpture is only 25-30 centimeters. Inside, the entire statue is made up of individual cell cells, like rooms in a building. The rigidity of the frame is supported by ninety-nine metal cables that are constantly in tension.
The sword, 33 meters long and weighing 14 tons, was originally made of stainless steel sheathed with titanium sheets. The huge mass and high windage of the sword, due to its colossal size, caused a strong swaying of the sword when exposed to wind loads, which led to excessive mechanical stress at the point of attachment of the hand holding the sword to the body of the sculpture. Deformations in the sword's structure also caused the sheets of titanium plating to move, creating an unpleasant sound of rattling metal. Therefore, in 1972, the blade was replaced with another one - entirely consisting of fluorinated steel - and holes were provided in the upper part of the sword, which made it possible to reduce its windage. The reinforced concrete structure of the sculpture was strengthened in 1986 on the recommendation of the NIIZhB expert group led by R.L. Serykh. Some interesting facts.
The sculpture "Motherland" is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest sculpture-statue in the world at that time. Its height is 52 meters, the length of the arm is 20 and the length of the sword is 33 meters. The total height of the sculpture is 85 meters. The weight of the sculpture is 8 thousand tons, and the sword is 14 tons (for comparison: the Statue of Liberty in New York is 46 meters high; the Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro is 38 meters). On the this moment the statue takes 11th place in the list of the tallest statues in the world
the author of the composition "Motherland" Yevgeny Viktorovich Vutetich once told Andrei Sakharov (Soviet physicist, one of the creators of the hydrogen bomb): “The authorities ask me why her mouth is open, because it's ugly. I answer: And she screams - for the Motherland ... your mother! - shut up" The monument is the second part of the triptych, which also consists of the monuments "Rear to Front" in Magnitogorsk and "Warrior-Liberator" in Treptow Park in Berlin. It is understood that the sword, forged on the banks of the Urals, was then raised by the Motherland in Stalingrad and lowered after the Victory in Berlin.

in the picture: "Rear - to the front" - a monument located in the city of Magnitogorsk. The authors of the monument: sculptor - Lev Nikolaevich Golovnitsky, architect - Yakov Borisovich Belopolsky. Material - bronze, granite. Height - 15 meters. "Warrior-Liberator" - a monument in Berlin's Treptow Park. Sculptor E. V. Vuchetich, architect Ya. B. Belopolsky, artist A. V. Gorpenko, engineer S. S. Valerius. Opened May 8, 1949. Height - 12 meters. The silhouette of the sculpture "Motherland" was taken as the basis for the development of the emblem and flag of the Volgograd region. According to the will, in Volgograd, on Mamaev Kurgan, at the foot of the Motherland monument, the commander of the 62nd Army, who distinguished himself in Battle of Stalingrad, Marshal Soviet Union- Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov. On the grave of V. I. Chuikov, fresh flowers almost always lie.
Forgive me, of course, but can someone answer me: Where is your world and our Motherland heading??!!

it turns out that a handful of bureaucrats will now take and erase part of our great history?!....
I have no words...