Deputy Boyarsky immortalized himself on a memorial plaque dedicated to Knorozov with a blooper

I will never forget myself

There are also lucky people. Take, for example, State Duma deputy, secretary of the St. Petersburg branch of United Russia Sergei Boyarsky: Sergei Mikhailovich is alive and well and relatively young (only 42 years old), and in his native St. Petersburg there is already a memorial plaque with his name. True, it is displayed in small detail – the main space of the plate is dedicated to the outstanding ethnographer Yuri Knorozov, who deciphered the Mayan script.

November 19 marks the 100th anniversary of Knorozov’s birth. Actually, the opening of the memorial plaque was timed to coincide with this anniversary date: it was placed on the house where the brilliant ethnographer lived for many years. You ask: “What does Sergei Boyarsky have to do with it?” The answer is on the plate itself, on its edge, where it is clearly carved: “Through the efforts of the United Russia party (S. Boyarsky)”.

According to Boyarsky himself, the sculptor Vyacheslav Bukhaev attracted him to the project. It is also known that the deputy helped the creators of the monument in overcoming bureaucratic obstacles: the St. Petersburg law “On memorial plaques” allows the installation of such only on the condition that “the memory of an outstanding personality is immortalized, since the death of which at least 30 years have passed.” Knorozov died 23 years ago – in 1999.

True, according to the same law, an exception can be made for “residents of St. Petersburg who have made a significant contribution to a certain area of ​​activity.” But either because, according to local officials, Knorozov did not fall into this category, or for some other reason a different path was chosen: according to the documents, the board was drawn as an element of improvement.

Whether the efforts of the deputy and his party are exhausted by this ingenious legal combination is not known for certain. No other assistance – financial, for example – is reported. But there is a payment for the efforts – the inscription on the stove, which, along with Knorozov, immortalized “United Russia” and the deputy Boyarsky.

Written, however, as already mentioned, not too large and not in the foreground. Not everyone notices the effort. But, as they say, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped: a scandal erupted over what is depicted on the board. The portrait of the scientist is placed against the background of the Stone of the Sun, a monument of Aztec culture. Again, Aztec, not Maya.

Amateurs, probably, will not see much difference in this, but from the point of view of professionals, this is a huge mistake: Knorozov did not deal with the Aztecs. This is another, later civilization. The mistake is rightly compared with the one made by the creators of the monument to gunsmith Mikhail Kalashnikov: on the monument – in its original version – instead of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an outwardly similar, but clearly recognizable by specialists, StG 44 assault rifle, which was in service with the Wehrmacht, was depicted.

Involuntarily, suspicions even creep in that the deputy arranged all this – so that his efforts would not go unnoticed. Now everyone knows for sure to whom the city owes such a memorial plaque. But the suspicion, of course, is groundless. It just happened.

To accuse the deputy, objectively speaking, in general in anything it is difficult. Whatever his help in installing the memorial plaque, the matter, in principle, is good and useful. True, for the future, the parliamentarian and his party can be advised, to paraphrase Stanislavsky a little, to love politics in oneself more than oneself in politics. Well, or, at least, skillfully disguise their vanity.

Here the disguise, it must be admitted, did not succeed at all. Almost like the famous hero of jokes: “Stirlitz was walking around Berlin, and something elusive betrayed a Russian intelligence officer in him – either Budenovka, famously shifted to one side, or a parachute dragging behind …”