Eyewitnesses reported an attempt to destroy the Osip Mandelstam Square located on Zabelin Street in the Basmanny District of Moscow. In particular, Lucy Malkis, founder of the ARCHiPEOPLE website, said on her Facebook page that the workers "are beating one of the most ingenious memorial plaques in Moscow with a puncher." Later it turned out that it was Magli Project LLC that was carrying out landscaping work in the park. After the eyewitnesses called the police, the work was suspended "until the circumstances were clarified" - for about a day.
The monument to Osip Mandelstam was opened in the park along Zabelin in 2008 for the 110th anniversary of the poet. The authors of the sculpture are the architect Alexander Brodsky, sculptors Dmitry Shakhovskoy and Elena Munts. “The board makes the square a cenotaph of O. E. Mandelstam, who, as you know, has no other grave. This square is, in fact, the place of his burial, what his body turned into,”notes Lucy Malkis.
Architect Yevgeny Ass, one of the jury members of the competition for the monument to Mandelstam, said that together with Alexander Brodsky, he called various government agencies (Department of Culture, Department of Heritage, District Council), but never received an intelligible answer. Later on Friday, on the official website of the Moscow Cultural Heritage Department, information appeared that in the Basmanny District on Starosadsky Lane, house No. 10, building 1, was being repaired, from which, in fact, a bronze commemorative plaque was removed. It is noted that this is a temporary measure and the table will be returned at the end of the overhaul.
Evgeny Ass pointed out that the project for the reconstruction of the park was not agreed with the authors of the project. “Previously, there was paving of different slabs and lawns without borders, this was Mandelstam's drama,” explains Ass. “And now they have laid everything down smoothly, made good standard rectangular lawns … The author's idea has been irretrievably lost.” The architect emphasizes that such events occurring with the cultural heritage have already begun to be perceived as commonplace. “What is happening makes a depressing impression. But the worst thing is that we are no stranger to it,”adds Evgeny Viktorovich.
