On September 5, 1997, a monument "In commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the Russian fleet", also known as "Monument to Peter the Great" by sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, was opened in Moscow. Almost immediately after the completion of the installation work, the monument gained very dubious fame.
The history of creation and design features of the monument
The height of Tsereteli's creation reaches 98 m. Thus, it is one of the highest monuments not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Even the famous Statue of Liberty is inferior to him. Materials of the highest quality were used for the production of the sculpture. The frame is made of stainless steel and the cladding is made of bronze. The weight of the monument exceeds 2000 tons. The sculpture consists of 3 parts, each of which was made separately: a pedestal, a ship and a figure of Peter the Great. It took Tsereteli about a year to create the monument.
Some Russian media published publications that initially this grandiose structure was a monument to Columbus, which the sculptor planned to sell to Spain, the United States and Latin American countries for the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America. However, Tsereteli's proposal did not arouse interest in any of the countries.
According to historians, inaccuracies were made when creating the sculpture. So, the rostras - the noses of enemy ships - are installed incorrectly. They are crowned with the St. Andrew's flag. It turns out that Peter fought against the Russian fleet he created himself. The official name of the monument was also inappropriate. The fact is that it could not be dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Russian fleet, since it opened only a year after this event.
Attitude towards the statue in society
The monument was immediately disliked by the majority of Muscovites. The appearance, huge size and a complete lack of value for the city caused a sharp rejection. In July 1997, they even tried to blow up the monument. In 2007, a fundraising campaign was organized to dismantle Tsereteli's creations. As a result, it was possible to collect 100,000 rubles, but this amount was clearly insufficient to implement the plan.
After the resignation from the post of Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, they wanted to donate the statue to St. Petersburg, but there they categorically refused this unheard-of generosity. In 2008, the work of Zurab Tsereteli, according to the site "Virtual Tourist", took the tenth place in the list of the ugliest buildings in the world.
Nevertheless, the monument still stands in Moscow, causing irony on the part of the townspeople and numerous representatives of the creative intelligentsia, who have devoted many lines to it in their works. So, with the light hand of Mikhail Weller and the leader of the DDT group Yuri Shevchuk, the statue of Peter the Great began to be called "Gulliver in a Lilliputian boat", and science fiction writer Oleg Divov, in the pages of the novel "The Best Crew of the Solar", generally presented him as a kind of pagan idol of the post-nuclear era.
