Over the past three years in Moscow, according to the official statistics of the Moscow City Heritage Site, 19 new monuments have been unveiled. These are sculptural objects, busts, and memorial signs. Almost two dozen - not so many, but some of them made as much noise as had not happened, perhaps since 1812 - with the installation of the monument to Minin and Pozharsky, the first city sculpture in Moscow. Note that there are 744 monuments in the capital (together with the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative areas).
It is believed that the race for the sculptural filling of Moscow streets began with the works of Zurab Tsereteli under the patronage of the Posokhin architects. However, "Arhnadzor" eight years ago proposed to remove all the creations of the "court sculptor" as disfiguring the image of the capital. At the same time, the zeal with which the authorities start new competitions, defend and promote projects of new monuments is surprising. Nikita Tokarev, the director of the MARCH architecture school, suggested that this is how the authorities are trying to express their concern for citizens - as they can and in the format in which they can afford. “Perhaps there is not enough competence, money, to really transform the urban environment, make improvements, change functionality, change transport. They are trying to replace this concern by installing a sculpture, - explains Nikita Tokarev. - This is a noticeable thing, it is supposedly a popular thing - it seems to correspond to aesthetic preferences, some aspirations of "ordinary people" - as mayors, deputies see them. And thirdly, it is relatively inexpensive compared to the improvement of streets, lighting, paving, new public transport."
New monuments are scolded - for the location or choice of personalities, for the artistic component, for the clumsy language and inarticulateness of the commemorative statement. Often, new objects of remembrance are considered in a kind of space-time vacuum: without taking into account the existing urban fabric, in isolation from the historical context of the already existing environment. As noted by the general director of the architectural bureau Panacom Arseny Leonovich, the creator's gaze often does not go beyond the "pedestal-parallelepiped for a bronze idol".
So it was with the monument to the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duke Vladimir, when the almost finished object was moved purely mechanically from the Sparrow Hills closer to the Kremlin. This story received the most media coverage. The author of the sketch was the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov, who, by the way, also earned a reputation as a "courtier". The monument was opened in November 2016, but this event was preceded by long protests: the public was outraged why a statue of a prince with a stained biography should appear and why the appearance of the monument was questioned right now, but, of course, the place of its installation was much more indignant … The original version on the middle edge of the Vorobyovy Gory contradicted the current legislation on the protection of monuments and was simply unsafe, since the territory was prone to landslides. In the end, the initiator of the RVIO campaign abandoned the Sparrow Hills, explaining that strengthening the slope would be expensive.
The alternative also proved to be highly controversial; from the very beginning
the questionnaire on the "Active Citizen" seemed a profanation. Of the three rather random options, Borovitskaya Square won, as you know. A special competition was organized for the improvement of the lawn, historically called "Nixon", in the middle of which it was supposed to install the figure of the prince. Muscovites reacted more favorably to the design of the lawn from the bureau AI-architects, although they called it a "gramophone record" - for concentric lines, which in fact symbolize rings on the water. By the way, the monument to the architects themselves, together with the place of installation, does not seem very successful. “Because of its brown tint, the volume is not readable from afar, and visually it is perceived as a shapeless mass,” says Ivan Kolmanok, co-founder and partner of the architectural studio AI-architects.
It is not always clear what motivated the choice of this or that site for the monument. “Why is Sholokhov, for example, standing on Gogolevsky Boulevard,” continues Nikita Tokarev. - I'm not even talking about the quality of the sculpture itself, but - what does he do there, why Sholokhov and why exactly there? Why is Rachmaninov standing on Strastnoy Boulevard, also a question for me? Vysotsky at least has a mention in the song (I mean a fragment from the song “I had forty surnames”: “But they won't erect a monument to me in the park / Somewhere near the Petrovsky gate.” Today, the monument to Vysotsky stands just at the Petrovsky gate - note Archi.ru), there is at least some connection to the poet's work."
The monument to Kalashnikov, erected in September last year in the Armory Park, owes its existence to the RVIO and Salavat Shcherbakov. Public outrage was caused by
a figure of remembrance - a man with a firearm he created - and realization: Kalashnikov turned out to be similar at the same time to a hero of an action movie and to a plastic soldier. And the anecdotal embarrassment only strengthened the negative impression of the monument: a few days after the installation it turned out that the StG 44 rifle, created by the German designer Hugo Schmeisser during the Second World War, was depicted on the monument's pedestal. There is a hypothesis that the Kalashnikov system was not original, but partially copied from Schmeisser. Shcherbakov had to make excuses that a mistake had crept into the project, and admit that they took "something from the Internet" for the sketch. Later, the incorrect fragment was cut down.
In October 2017, a bas-relief dedicated to the victims of political repression was unveiled on Sakharov Avenue. The idea of creating a full-fledged memorial arose back in the 1960s, in 2015 a large-scale
competition, the sculptor Georgy Frangulyan was named the winner, but it was not possible to "shoot". “I consider the monument on Sakharov Avenue a complete failure in terms of urban planning and the organization of the square,” says Ivan Kolmanok. - It was important for the author to evoke emotions - and a feeling of disgust really arises. I don’t understand why it was impossible to just make the place memorable and stop there”. Architect, founder of MARSH, Evgeny Ass, in turn, on the air of Radio Liberty, spoke about his disappointment: “The place was chosen quite by chance, nothing remarkable in the city, not at the most popular intersection. In general, this monument would, of course, deserve a place in the very heart of the capital. I am confused, among other things, that this monument, as far as I know, does not have any numbers at all, there is no mention of the scale of this catastrophe."
This year, not far from the renovated House of the Russian Diaspora, a monument to Solzhenitsyn is to be unveiled. As a result of the competition, the jury chose a sketch by sculptor Andrei Kovalchuk: a figure with his hands folded behind his back is designed to tell about the tests that fell to the lot of the writer and his resistance. Nevertheless, the works marked by experts as among the best are, in general, similar to each other; differ only in posture, clothing and pedestal. Architect Yuri Avvakumov, who also participated in the competition, proposed a non-sculptured version. The cenotaph with a rectangular base resembles a classic temple with columns. In the center of the structure is a space resembling a cage; to get there, you need to squeeze between the columns, and the closer to the center, the more difficult it is to do this. Probably, such an "interactive exercise" could more accurately show the viewer Solzhenitsyn as a writer and public figure than a realistic copy in bronze.
“Perhaps the only monument of those that have appeared over the past 10-20 years, which I love, is the monument to Mandelstam,” says Nikita Tokarev.“He’s in a very precise place, a precise scale for this place. In my opinion, it is much more accurate in relation to Mandelstam, to this square, than, for example, a long story with quotes from his poems. This little head tells me much more than tens of tons of bronze. " Recall that the "chamber"
a monument to Mandelstam has been standing in an unnamed public garden on Zabelin Street since 2008. The authors are sculptors Dmitry Shakhovskoy and Elena Munts, architect Alexander Brodsky. When choosing the winner, the jury of the competition (which, among others, included Yevgeny Ass, Grigory Revzin, Vadim Sidur) noted the high artistic level of the project and the well-chosen place.
Among the successful ones - both in design and execution - our interlocutors also named the Last Address memorial project dedicated to the victims of Stalin's terror. A small plaque (11x19 cm) with the name of the repressed is mounted on the wall of the house where he lived. In the place where the photograph is usually provided, there is an empty window. Anyone can become an applicant, and the production is carried out at the expense of donations. “I think this is a very important public event,” adds the director of the MARCH school. - The memorial plaque is a kind of monument too, but it does not stand on the square, it hangs on the house. And the fact that such boards appear on the initiative of residents of houses, on a private initiative, I consider a very important sign. This is a network event, an event extended in time, and not just a single sculpture staged once. As a sculpture, this thing is not figurative, it communicates with us in some other language."
Attempts to rethink the language of monuments and move away from the usual narrative occur more often in educational institutions, within the framework of the "paper" format. A year ago,
workshop New Monuments for New History, organized jointly by MARCH School and InLiberty. The teams came up with monuments for "seven events of recent history, in which Russian society was able to defend its freedoms or conquer new ones." The established chronological period covers 130 years, from the abolition of serfdom in 1861 to the establishment of free market relations in 1992.
The problem of freedom is one of the most acute for modern Russia, and the workshop chose as its goal the search for a new language that meets the requirements of today's reality. Many of the projects presented are with interactive sensors and controllers that allow you to simulate the environment, immerse yourself in the conditions of that time and conditionally witness it. According to the curator of one of the teams, composer Sergei Nevsky (his group was working on a project for the August putsch) "we forget how the times sounded, what voices the announcers had, what kind of vocabulary they used, what kind of music it was then." A detailed description of the projects and the list of participants can be found here.
Another, in our opinion, an interesting and significant project was made by the Graduate School of Urbanism, NRU HSE. The management suggested that the students rethink the monument to Dzerzhinsky, which the institution inherited in the load along with the building on Shabolovka. This workshop became a kind of answer to the questions that occupy the minds of those living in the post-Soviet space: how to relate to the existing monuments of the Soviet period, what significance they carry today and what to do with them (and whether it is necessary). The figure of the leader of the Red Terror, erected in 1937, is a symbol of that political power and its presence, a symbol of intimidation and control by a country that is already 20 years old.
The students of the Higher School of Economics propose not to ignore the biography of the "KGB hero", but to focus on it, although the approach of each group is different. Someone gives their own direct assessment of the actions of the "ideological executioner", others invite potential viewers to participate in the discussion and, possibly, record their attitude in writing. Still others suggest removing the focus from Iron Felix and rearranging the space in favor of the students.
