History of the monument to Peter the Great in Voronezh

In the history of Russia the leading place is deservedly occupied by Peter the Great. The great Russian converter, dreaming of exits to the southern seas, fulfilled his dream by deploying a great shipbuilding project in Voronezh. A quiet patriarchal town began to live an ebullient life, creating ships for the first Russian flotilla according to the designs of the tsar himself. Here, in Voronezh, Peter the Great founded the creation of a navy, the first in the history of Russia, to strengthen the power of the state.

The unofficial symbol of Voronezh

The city in which the tsar created the Russian navy retained the memory of the great reformer. In 1860, the first monument to Peter the Great in Russia appeared in Voronezh. In the historical center of the city, at the intersection of Stepan Razin Street and the Revolution Avenue, there is a square. It is named in honor of Tsar Peter 1 - Petrovsky, here is a monument erected to him. Petrovsky Square - a favorite place of Voronezh.

In 2003 it was reconstructed, the "Petrovsky Passage" now stands on the site of the old building behind the monument. But Voronezh believe that the building of the new shopping center gives a modern look to the Petrovsky Square. That is why in 2009, the townspeople chose the monument to Peter 1 as an unofficial symbol of Voronezh. Monuments to tourists come to the monument at the monument, and wedding corteges will not fail to stop here for several minutes. In the park people like to relax in the shade of trees elderly people and mothers with wheelchairs.

Creation of a monument

The idea of creating a monument to Peter 1 belonged to the governor of Voronezh DN Begichev. In 1834 he sent a petition to the ruling emperor Nicholas 1, in which he asked for assistance in the construction of the monument to Peter 1. The tsar approved the petition, but was refused financing. Money was needed to buy out the island and the storehouse. Gathered money from the inhabitants of the province. A certain amount of the collected funds was spent on redemption and some restoration work. Further work was suspended due to lack of money.

The work on the monument's project was resumed only in 1857. Already the new governor Sinelnikov NP. Continued the work of the previous one on the embodiment of the idea. Emperor Alexander II ordered the allocation of a certain amount of money from the state treasury for the erection of the monument to Peter the Great in Voronezh. In addition, he ordered to check the conformity of time shoes with sculptured Peter.

The erection of the monument

The architect Grimm DI worked on the creation of the future structure on paper, the figure of which was embodied in the sculpture by AE Shvarts. The appearance of the king was reproduced with the utmost precision from a posthumous mask. The Emperor was "dressed" in the uniform of the Preobrazhensky regiment. A monument was erected in the factory of St. Petersburg.

The basis of the monument served as polished granite slabs, delivered along the Don River to Voronezh. Monument to Peter 1 was installed on a granite pedestal, facing the main street of the city. The inscriptions were made of bronze. On the one side of the monument is the "Emperor Peter the Great, 1860". On the opposite side - "Voronezh nobles and citizens." The monument was opened on August 30, 1860 with 101 volley of artillery pieces. At the opening of the monument there was the Azov Regiment sent to Voronezh.

The end of the first stage of the monument's life

A sad story about the monument to Peter the Great in Voronezh was remembered by local residents who survived the revolution and the years of the German-fascist occupation. Immediately after the revolution, the director of the Voronezh Museum of Local Lore, who decided to curry favor with the new government, received a proposal to demolish the monument to Peter 1 in order to establish something appropriate in its place, but the local residents defended the monument.

But during the occupation, the fascists could not resist. In 1942, on the orders of the occupying German authorities, two bronze monuments were removed and taken out of the city for remelting. These were monuments to Peter 1 and Lenin. About Peter 1 memory remained in the form of an empty granite pedestal.

On the pedestal young Peter 1

At the end of the war the Voronezhs appealed to the city authorities with a request for the restoration of the monument to Peter 1. It so happened that the request was granted. Of course, such a precedent in history was not that the government of the Soviet Union build a monument to the emperor. But a special government decree made such a decision. Monument to Peter the Great in Voronezh according to the description of eyewitnesses, preserved photographs, engravings, postcards and museum documents was created by the sculptors GA Shultz and N. P. Gavrilov.

True, they decided to make two amendments to the created image of Peter 1. The first is to give dynamics to the sculpture, making the caftan floors on the tsar fluttering in the wind. The second amendment is the appearance of Peter 1. He "looked younger". Since Peter 1 was 21 to 32 years old when he was building a fleet at the shipyards of the city, this change was welcomed.

In 1947, the sculptors create a working model of the monument, which was on display for Voronezh. Then a sculpture was created from plaster, and then cast from bronze at the art casting plant in Mytishchi. A new monument to Peter the Great in Voronezh was erected on the pedestal that was waiting for him and was opened in 1956.