Description of the attraction
On Ostrovsky Square in St. Petersburg in 1873, a monument to Empress Catherine II was unveiled in the center of Alexandrovskaya Square. From the day he was introduced to the public, all sorts of legends circulated around the monument, and city witters in every possible way made fun of the statue of the Russian autocrat. They said that the statues of the Empress's favorites on the pedestal indicate the size of their merits with gestures, and Derzhavin just makes a helpless gesture that a treasure of tremendous value is buried under the pedestal - a ring, which a certain high-ranking lady threw into the pit when laying it down. As for the first story, it is fiction. Of all Catherine's favorites on the monument, there is only an image of G. A. Potemkin. But the second legend seemed to be taken seriously - under Soviet rule, excavations were going to be carried out in the Catherine Garden. True, they were never started.
Various curiosities and troubles constantly occurred with the monument to Catherine. Some details - chains, orders, swords - periodically disappeared, during restoration work, fragments of glass bottles were found in the crown on the head of the empress, a sword was pulled out of the hands of the sculpture of commander A. Suvorov several times, and the assassination attempts continue now, and once the jokers turned Catherine's outfit in a sailor's vest. Vandals were found in most cases. In the old days, chess players liked to gather in the Catherine Garden.
The idea of installing the monument arose in 1860, 100 years after the accession of Catherine II. The author of the monument is the artist M. Mikeshin. The granite pedestal is made of stone, which was delivered to the Neva embankment by water from the Karelian Isthmus. Then, granite was delivered to the site along specially laid railway tracks.
The lower part of the pedestal is made of Putsalo quarry granite, the base and cornice are made of gray granite from the Yanisari quarry, the pedestal is made of gray Snesquezalmi granite. The figures in the pedestal were cast by the bronze-casters of the Nichols & Plinke factory.
The cost of work on the construction of the monument was 316 thousand rubles. The production of commemorative medallions, the reconstruction of the square and the opening ceremony cost about 456 thousand rubles. The monument was manufactured and assembled in stages from 1862 to 1873. The consecration ceremony took place in November 1873.
Under Soviet rule, in the early 30s, the monument was planned to be dismantled, and a sculpture of Lenin was put in place of Catherine. Mount figures of 9 members of the Leninist Politburo into the pedestal.
Since 1988, the Catherine Garden has been taken under state protection. In the late 90s and early 2000s, the park was reconstructed and the layout of 1878 was returned.
The authorship of the monument belongs to the artists M. Mikeshin, A. Opekushin, M. Chizhov, architects D. Grim, V. Shterer. The height of the sculpture of Empress Catherine II is 4, 35 m. In the hands - a laurel wreath and a scepter, at the feet - the crown of the Russian Empire. On the chest of the Empress is the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. Around the pedestal, the figures of the Empress's associates: statesman Alexei Orlov-Chesmensky, poet Gabriel Derzhavin, Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky, commander Alexander Suvorov, statesman Grigory Potemkin, polar explorer Vasily Chichyagov, president of the Russian Academy of Arts Ekaterina Dashkova, President of the Russian Academy of Arts Yekaterina Bashkova, Prince Alexander Bezborodko.
It was planned to expand the memorial, but the Russian-Turkish war and other events of the reign of Emperor Alexander II prevented this. Architect D. Grimm presented a project according to which bronze statues of prominent public and political figures of the era of her reign were to be located next to the monument to Catherine II. Among them should have been the playwright A. P. Sumarokov, writer D. I. Fonvizin, Prosecutor General of the Senate A. A. Vyazemsky, Admiral of the Fleet F. F. Ushakov.
