Regions of Russia: New monuments to appear in Irkutsk to coincide with its 350th foundation anniversary

Ten or so new monuments and sculptures will be erected in streets of Irkutsk to coincide with city’s 350th foundation anniversary due in the middle of September.

The Architecture and Town Planning Department of Irkutsk reports that in May the city will see an obelisk to city’s founders. The competition for its best draft was conducted in November 2010. The winner became the project of the creative team from Moscow headed by the sculptor Mikhail Pereyaslavets and architect Pavel Volchok. They have created a generalized character of Russian explorer, however meaning a real historical personality – Cossacks Sotnik Yakov Pokhabov, who in summer 1661 made a report to voivode Ivan Rzhevsky saying that he had laid wooden stockade town on the right bank of the Angara River on the site where another river Irkut falls into it.

A monument to wives of the Decembrists in the image of Countess Maria Volkonskaya will also appear in the city. Her figure has been already made in the clay and is waiting for being cast in bronze. In the metal will be produced the heraldic symbol of the city – the Siberian tiger or, as it is also called by the Siberians, a beaver carrying a sable in its teeth. The sculpture will reach 2,5 meters in height.