Monument to the founders of Odessa

Catherine II, with her 1794 script, laid the foundation for the construction of the city and port . In gratitude in 1900, the inhabitants of Odessa erected a monument to Catherine and her associates, with whose efforts the port and the city were founded. The opening of the monument took place on May 6, 1900 and was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of A.V. Suvorov . The monument was erected on the triangle-shaped square of the same name.

To erect a monument to the founders of the city was proposed by the public figure K.M. Minciaki in 1890 at a joint meeting of the city government and the commission on the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Odessa . On September 23, 1891, the Odessa City Council decided to create a monument in honor of the centenary of the founding of the city. A project competition was announced and two prizes (two and one thousand rubles) were awarded for the best of them. The competition commission included: acting mayor V.N. Ligin, member of the city council N.V. Velkoborsky , members of the Odessa branch of the Imperial Russian Technical Society Y. N. Novikov and architect A. G. Luyks , members of the Society of Fine Arts B. V. Eduards and K.K. Kostandi , city architect A.E. Shains and two architects for the appointment of the council V.A. Dombrowski and G.K. Shevrenbrandt. From May 1, 1892, entries were submitted. The first prize was awarded to the project under the motto “Odessa Port” by Odessa architect Yu. M. Dmitrenko , and the second under the motto “Esperance” by foreign architect Donato Barkalya. On the recommendation of the council, the city council on August 24, 1892 decided to allow the implementation of the project - the winner of the competition. January 14, 1893, after the report of the Minister of Internal Affairs to the sovereign, the highest deign followed the construction of a monument to the founders of the city to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Odessa . The laying of the monument took place as part of the centenary of the city on August 22 (September 2), 1894. The estimate of the project amounted to 57 thousand rubles. Model sculpture was taken over by professor of sculpture, academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts ( St. Petersburg ) M.P. Popov for 10 thousand rubles, and work on building the base of the pedestal and casting the figures themselves from bronze were handed over to the sculptor B.V. Eduards and the owner of the sculpture shop, the foreman of the marble workshop of the Odessa General Craft Administration Leopold Mentsion for a total amount of 38 thousand rubles. The control over the implementation of the work was entrusted to the author of the project, Yu. M. Dmitrenko, who was supposed to receive 5.3 percent of the total cost of the work, that is, 2650 rubles. Additional costs (transportation, etc.) amounted to 4350 rubles ^[2] , ^[3] .

After the February Revolution of 1917, the monument was draped, and with the establishment of Soviet power, it was dismantled (while the statues of the empress’s associates were kept in the museum of local lore , and the statue of the empress herself was partially destroyed). According to legend, they wanted to melt bronze figures into shells, but one of the sailors remarked: “It’s not good to have shells of non-proletarian origin.”

In 1965, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the uprising on the battleship “Potemkin” , a monument was erected on this place to the rebellious sailors or, as the inhabitants of Odessa called it, “a monument to the Potemkin people” ^[4] , jokingly called by the inhabitants of Odessa “iron”.

For the first time, ideas for the restoration of the monument appeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even some kind of fundraising for the future monument was organized - for example, the famous artist Ilya Glazunov seems to have transferred part of the fee for his exhibition in Odessa to restore the monument. However, this did not end there. The first serious interest in its restoration took shape in 1995, when the Odessa City Council decided to restore the monument to the founders of the city, using the preserved bronze fragments and adding the missing elements of the granite pedestal. However, these plans were stopped by the President of Ukraine L. D. Kuchma ^[5] .

In 2006, the Odessa authorities again returned to the idea of ​​restoring the monument.

On July 2, 2007, the Odessa City Council submitted a draft decision “On the Comprehensive Restoration and Improvement of Catherine’s Square in Odessa with a Reproduction of its Historical View”. According to this decision, the monument to the Potemkins standing on the site of the monument to Catherine was to be dismantled and moved to Customs Square, and a monument to the Founders of the city was to be recreated on Catherine Square. By the decision of the City Council No. 1401-V of July 4, 2007, a commission was established to control the compliance of the restored monument with the Founders of Odessa with the lost original. The project was sponsored and ordered by the city council deputy .

Ruslan Tarpan: “The desire to restore Catherine’s Square in all its glory, which was visible on old postcards, appeared in my youth. That is why I acted as a customer and patron of the restoration of this monument. It was a thorny but fascinating process. For me, it was a matter of honor to restore it in the form in which it was at the beginning of the 20th century, when in 1901 at the World Exhibition in Paris this square was recognized as the best in Europe! ” ^[6]

The head and general manager of all the work performed was the Honored Architect of Ukraine, Professor Vladimir Glazyrin ^[7] .

When reconstructing the monument, the preserved historical documents and photographs of those years were widely used. Materials were collected from the archives of Odessa, Kiev and St. Petersburg. For example, a watercolor sketch of the monument to the author of the project by architect Yuri Melentievich Dmitrenko was preserved. It should be noted that the monument erected in 1900 was different from this sketch. Among the main differences is the presence of a rust on the pedestal, which is not on the sketch of Dmitrenko and the inscription in one line instead of a two-line inscription on the sketch. The second line indicated the centenary of Odessa - 1794-1894. The names of the four associates of Catherine in the Dmitrenko project were embossed on granite, but this was not in the original monument.

When reconstructing the monument, it was decided to reproduce everything as it was done in kind, so the monument is different from the sketch design that has come down to us. The only external difference from the original monument was four bronze tablets with the names of associates of Catherine.

The empress’s bronze figure had to be completely redone, as it seemed impossible to combine the head preserved in the Museum of Local Lore in color with the rest of the figure being created. According to the decision of the customer Ruslan Tarpan, a tender was announced for casting the statue of Catherine. One Odessa and two Kiev sculptors participated in the tender. Three gypsum models of the statue of Catherine II about a meter high were presented. As a result of the tender, the production of a bronze statue was commissioned by the Kiev creative and production plant “Artist”. This plant is known to Odessa residents because monuments to L. Utesov, S. Utochkin, and Vera Kholodnaya were cast on it. Two years after the construction of the monument to Catherine, the same plant produced a monument to Mazepa in Poltava. ^[eight]

The sculpting of figures and decor was carried out by Kiev sculptors Oleg Viktorovich Chernoivanov and Honored Artist of Ukraine Nikolai Alekseevich Oleinik. The work of making a 3-meter clay sculpture was completed in a few months. The figures of four associates of Catherine - Potemkin, Zubov, de Ribas and de Volan, after the necessary restoration, were used original ones. It is interesting to note that these figures were saved thanks to such important cultural figures as Maxim Gorky and Benoit. ^[9]

Particularly carefully approached the search for granite samples necessary for the manufacture of the pedestal. So, the column was made of red granite mined at the Emelyanovsky quarry (also known as “Zhytomyr granite”), granite for the pedestal was mined at the Yantsevskoye deposit, for staircases - from the Novokonstantinovskoye deposit. In this regard, one can point to another difference between the restored monument and the original of 1900 - in that monument the granite of the column of the pedestal was polished, in the new it is polished. The polished column is guessed in the sketch of Yuri Dmitrenko, and the customer decided in this case to follow the original project of Dmitrenko, although this technology is more expensive than polishing ..

On July 19, 2007, a solemn symbolic stone laying took place at the site of the restored monument.

The restoration of the monument required the tidying up of the entire area around the monument. More than six months it took to create project documentation and study materials in archives in order to restore the original appearance of buildings, including their color. A special chemical-technological analysis of paint layers was carried out. All drainpipes and drainage systems on the roof of buildings, on windows and on balconies were completely replaced. 6,000 elements of the lost or damaged stucco decoration of buildings were recreated, and all cast-iron elements of the decor were restored, including the lattice of balconies, gates overlooking the square. As a result, the ensemble of buildings of the square now looks the same as it looked a hundred years ago - in both color and architectural sense. An atmosphere of relaxation was created around the monument - a green lawn with flowers planted in the form of monograms of Catherine II, neat benches and lanterns typical of the beginning of the 20th century. In the same style, a tablet was installed telling about the history of the monument and its restoration. The square itself was paved with granite tiles. In addition, all the buildings and the monument were highlighted in a special way, which allowed them to admire their architecture in the dark. A “smart” system of architectural lighting was used, which allows, among other things, to save electricity. A security system was also installed, which includes a number of video cameras that allow you to view the entire area.

The festive opening ceremony of the monument on October 27, 2007 was organized with an eye on a similar year of 1900 - in particular, girls dressed in the uniform of soldiers of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky regiment surrounded the monument, and ladies and gentlemen walked around, dressed in costumes of the golden age of Catherine.

After the opening of the monument, the complex of Catherine’s Square became one of the main attractions of Odessa. The architectural ensemble of the square claims to be one of the architectural monuments protected by UNESCO, because at one time, at the Paris Architecture Exhibition in 1901, Catherine Square was recognized as the best in Europe ^[10] .

Catherine Square very quickly became a favorite place for newlyweds.

Judging by the documents discovered in recent years, immediately after the opening of the original monument, the quality of the work performed raised questions. So, Olga Bogdanovich, a researcher of the work of architect Dmitrenko, discovered a letter from Boris Eduards, in which he wrote in particular: “The monument to Catherine II in Odessa was built according to the project of architect Dmitrenko, who received the first prize in the competition. (...) As for me, I was only a performer of the technical side of the structure, that is, I performed granites and bronzes, and the models were, with the exception of two figures, executed by academician Popov. That is, do not ascribe other people's sins to me ” ^[11] . Apparently, this letter to the newspaper’s editorial office was written because Eduards was “credited” with the authorship of the monument and some “sins” in connection with this. In the 1920s, the local historian A.M. Deribas , insisting on the preservation of the unique monument, pointed out that the figures of Potemkin and Devolan cast by Popov in 1897, on arrival in Odessa, were recognized by Eduards unsuitable and cast again ^[11] .

Odessa press made a number of comments on the reconstructed monument. For example, Evening Odessa wrote (No. 45 (8782) // March 27, 2008):

“It is not clear why there are only two names of participants in its creation on the restored monument - Yu. M. Dmitrenko and B. Eduards. Well, the owner of the marble goods shops and the foreman of the marble workshop of the Odessa General Craft Administration Leopold Menzion are not mentioned - part of the work was done by new masters, whose names are cast in bronze on the monument, praise them. But the name of the author of sculptures, academician M.P. Popov, should appear on the monument, especially since the inhabitants of Odessa managed to save, and now again establish the originals of his work. <...> The organizers of the reconstruction of the monument “overdid it” a little and right in front of it, where there is no transition, there is no way, they made a new path covered with granite. Under it, the monogram, the crown, and the Christian cross were completely unworthy under the feet of visitors. We have to hope that this misunderstanding (we believe only an annoying mistake) will be corrected <...>. Another misunderstanding is people almost constantly crowding on the steps of the monument. Accustomed to attraction monuments and disoriented by concrete paths, which were suddenly “carefully” laid along the lawns and to the marble Laocoon, and to the bronze lions in Gorsada, they can no longer “understand” that these steps can only serve to laying on them, lay flowers. However, for this it is not necessary to climb onto the monument. ” ^[11]

In 2012, attempts to cancel the decision to install the monument (and, as a result, its demolition) were resumed. In September 2012, the Seaside Court, and in March 2015, the Odessa Administrative Court of Appeal rejected the suit of the Association of Cossack Societies Sich, which demanded to cancel the decision of the Odessa City Council of 2006 to transfer the monument to the Potemkin people as illegal ^[12] . This would make it possible to remove the monument to the founders of Odessa under the pretext of restoring the monument to the heroes of the battleship “Potemkin” at this place. On August 20, 2015, the Higher Administrative Court in Kiev, having examined the cassation appeal, doubted the cleanliness of the transfer of the Potemkin monument to Primorskaya Street and the objectivity of the first two instances and allowed the demolition of the monument to Catherine II ^[13] . At the same time, restoration of the “Potemkin’s” monument on this site is hardly possible due to the law on decommunization.

In 2015, the City Hall began preparations for the replacement of the original parts of the monument (figures of favorites) with copies according to the program for including the central historical part of Odessa’s buildings in the UNESCO World Heritage List ^[14] .

On February 5, 2018, the Odessa Administrative Court of Appeal refused to satisfy the claims of Sich regarding the return of the Potemkin monument to Catherine Square. Thus, both monuments remain at the places of their current location ^[15] . Also, residents of the city created a petition to preserve the monument to the Founders of Odessa on the website of the President of Ukraine.

In April 2019, the Supreme Court of Ukraine put an end to, rejecting the demand of public activists to move the monument to the Founders of Odessa ^[16] .

• Shubart P. Scho Warto nobility Odessa residents about Kateryninsky Square // Chornomorskі noviny. - 15 of the 2013 worm .-- Part 48 (21416).
• Pilyavsky V.A. Buildings, structures, monuments of Odessa and their architects. - 2nd ed .. - Odessa: Optimum, 2010 .-- 276 p. - ISBN 978-966-344-377-5 .

• Monument to Catherine II desecrated in Odessa (VIDEO)