The monument to Catherine II demolished in Odessa turned out to be a remake

It happened anyway. On Thursday night, monuments to the Russian Empress Catherine II (the founders of the city, there are several figures) and commander Alexander Suvorov were dismantled in Odessa. It is reported that both monuments will be transferred to the museum for storage, although it will be difficult to find a place for such large-scale monuments there. Catherine II with the other founders of Odessa goes “into exile” for the second time. For the first time, the monument was demolished under the Bolsheviks.

Ukraine is methodically getting rid of monuments and names related to Russia. At the end of August, almost 100 streets were renamed in Kyiv, and 200 different objects in Odessa. The public allegedly insisted on the demolition of the monument to Suvorov and the Russian empress, during whose reign Odessa was founded. One of the petitions addressed to Zelensky gained 25,000 votes. He forwarded the question to the City Council, noting “the importance of protecting national interests, working out the issues of cleaning public space from objects and monuments relating to the Russian imperial and Soviet heritage.”

In November, local deputies voted to remove both monuments. But they did not dare to demolish immediately. Just surrounded the monument with a fence. Now, under the cover of night, the job is done. And at the same time they demolished the monument to Suvorov.

Both monuments are promised to be moved to the city’s National Museum of Art, where, most likely, they will be stored in parts. The fact is that the former Naryshkin-Pototsky mansion is not suitable for storing large monuments. In its chamber halls there are expositions of paintings by Savrasov, Aivazovsky, Kramskoy, Levitan, Shishkin. Kuindzhi, Kandinsky. There are simply no halls of monumental art there. And the vaults in the dungeons of an old mansion are not too predisposed to store massive sculptural compositions.

In Russia, the actions of the Ukrainian authorities reacted emotionally. “This war of the Kyiv regime with monuments to those to whom Ukraine, in fact, owes its existence, looks both comical and tragic. “Ivans who do not remember kinship” brought the situation to the point in which Russia was forced to launch a special military operation, ”wrote State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky on his telegram channel.

The monument to the founders of Odessa is dedicated to Catherine II and her associates Joseph de Ribas, Franz de Volan, Grigory Potemkin and Platon Zubov. He stood on Catherine’s Square. The opening of the monument designed by the Odessa architect Yuri Dmitrenko in 1900 was timed to coincide with the centenary of the death of Suvorov and the birthday of Emperor Nicholas II. A grandiose holiday was arranged in Odessa: the choir performed the Catherine’s hymn “Thunder of victory, resound” written on the capture of Ishmael by Suvorov, then “God save the Tsar!”. The guns of warships saluted from the raid, the bells of the surrounding churches rang …

However, already in 1917, after the February Revolution, the monument was draped. At first with red cloth, but somehow a drunken sailor climbed onto the monument and covered the head of the empress with a jute bag. How can one not recall the recent desecration of a monument in Odessa, when a similar bag was placed on Catherine’s head…

Three years later, in 1920, the monument was dismantled. The bronze figures of Catherine’s associates were transferred to the local history museum, and only the head remained of the statue of the Empress herself, which was also transferred to the storerooms for storage.

On the pedestal there appeared either images of a sickle and a hammer, or sculptures of Marx, then a monument to the Potemkinites was erected.

In the middle of the 2000s, the Odessa authorities thought about restoring the monument in order to “reproduce the historical appearance” of the city. In 2007, the deputies created a commission that would make sure that the sketch of the new monument did not differ from the lost original.

The project was sponsored by businessman Ruslan Tarpan. It was decided to recreate the monument according to the preserved historical documents and photographs of those years. Painstaking work was carried out to study the archives not only in Odessa and Kyiv, but also in St. Petersburg. The only external difference from the original monument was the plates with the names of Catherine’s associates. They were not in Dmitrenko’s sketch.

At the same time, the square was reconstructed: a square with flower beds was laid out, granite tiles were laid, and an architectural lighting system was connected. The place has become one of the main city attractions. The figure of the empress had to be cast anew, because the head preserved in the vaults changed its color over time and could not be combined with the rest of the figure. By the way, President Viktor Yushchenko, under whom the monument to Catherine II was restored in Odessa, was categorically against this event, stating that it was inappropriate to erect a monument to the empress, who dissolved the Zaporozhian Sich.

The sponsor of the restoration of the monument to Catherine II in Odessa, Ruslan Tarpan, has been on the international wanted list since 2017. The Ukrainian authorities accuse him of several articles of the Criminal Code – from “appropriation and embezzlement of property or taking it by abuse of official position” to “official forgery.” According to the cases initiated against him, the businessman faces a total of seven to twelve years.

The main accusation concerns his involvement in the diversion of funds allocated for the construction of the Deep Water Discharge project to divert sewage from Odessa to the Black Sea. A criminal case on these charges was opened in 2014. It was not possible to detain Tarpan. According to some reports, he was seen in Israel, the United Arab Emirates, in Russia, and even in several African countries.

As for historical monuments, the history of the restoration of the monument to the founders of Odessa belongs to one of the brightest moments of Tarpan’s activity. All his other efforts in the field of “revival” of Odessa had a negative connotation. The Odessa media have repeatedly noted that “reconstruction of monuments, old residential buildings, hotels, markets, hospitals has been Ruslan Tarpan’s favorite field of activity since the nineties of the last century.” And by his efforts, Odessa has been significantly mutilated, because “by hook or by crook he gets the old ones, destroys and builds new structures, acting as a contractor.” Among the objects that Tarpan destroyed are the Starokonny Market, the Bolshaya Moskovskaya Hotel, Rusov’s house, and the historic building of the Spartak Hotel. Now Odessa has lost the monument to Catherine II restored by him. In its place, the Ukrainian flag appeared on the pedestal on Thursday.

As for the monument to Suvorov, the current mayor, then a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, Gennady Trukhanov, decided to restore it at one time. It was in 2012. Now, with his filing, the monument has been demolished. Everything is almost according to the precepts of Taras Bulba: “I restored you. I will take you down.”