In Kiev, the dismantling of the Soviet coat of arms began with the statue “Fatherland”
Photo: REUTERS
Kiev is on the eve of its most significant victory after the former Ukrainians dug up the Black Sea. In the capital of Nezalezhnaya, work began on replacing the coat of arms of the USSR in the shield of the statue “Fatherland” with the modern coat of arms of Ukraine, a trident or, as they say in Ukraine itself, a trident. Now they will definitely move, like nowhere else and never.
On the shield with the Soviet coat of arms on the statue “Fatherland” at the entrance of Kiev into Ukraine, they began to grit their teeth and lick almost immediately after Efromaidan’s victory, the epidemic of “Leninfall”, which fell from the pedestals of numerous monuments to Lenin throughout the country, cooled down a little for a while. Then came the turn of monuments to the Bolsheviks, war heroes, Russian statesmen, the renaming of cities and streets. But the shield of the largest statue in Europe (102 meters together with the pedestal, the tallest monument in Europe and the fifth tallest in the world) persecuted the Ukrainian Nazis. And, although experts warned that the option of dismantling the coat of arms and replacing it with a new version of the image on the shield is difficult to implement and unpredictable in its consequences (up to the violation of the stability of the statue), the hands of the ukronazis itched more and more every month. And finally, they scratched their heads to the point that the decision was made to replace the coat of arms on the statue’s shield. On July 13, on his social media account, the country’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, announced that Ukrainian authorities had allowed the statue to “decommunize.”
– Today, the State Inspection of Architecture and Urban Planning (DIAM) issued a permit to replace the coat of arms of the USSR on the shield of the Monument to the Motherland with a Ukrainian trident. Decommunization in action! Construction work is underway,” he wrote. And then-Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko explained after him at a press conference that all the work should be completed by August 24, when Ukraine will celebrate Independence Day.
The Ukrainian authorities quickly mobilized the business, which contributed the required amount, calculated by Ukrainian experts – 28 million hryvnia. And today the works of the monument have begun. So far, the dismantling of the old coat of arms, which weighs 400 kg.
– Since mid-May, I have hardly slept, barely eaten and have not seen my family. He was constantly engaged, communicating with the author of the coat of arms, which was approved at the legislative level in 1992. We talked to him about how to correctly represent the coat of arms in a sculpture heraldically. Absolutely nothing has changed in terms of the proportions of the coat of arms itself: all radii, angles and all proportions are identical to those prescribed in the Constitution, – the author of the new coat of arms, sculptor Alexander Pergamenshchik, told reporters.
But with the new coat of arms there was an overlap. It should have exactly the same weight as the previous one and correspond to it in size. And, as the same sculptor said, it should have been made of the same stainless steel containing titanium with a thickness of 1.5 mm.
The famous Zaporizhstal plant could not fulfill the order in accordance with the requirements of the received terms of reference. In the alloy sent by the plant, the commission of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine found flaws that do not allow the use of the material.
– The steel provided by the mill has different thicknesses, which can change the weight of the entire structure. In addition, the plant material had a significant amount of damage, which would complicate and slow down the preparatory work,” the ministry said in a statement. As a result, it was decided to buy European-made steel, but the coat of arms will still be produced by one of the companies in Kiev.
Now specialists have caught up with the statue, a bunch of equipment, and the process of dismantling the old coat of arms has begun. It is not clear how all this fuss will end in the end, but in Kiev they are sure that now, after this “victory” in Ukraine,They will recover. And if this doesn’t help, then it’s generally unclear what else can help the Plaza.
Just in case, it would be recommended not to melt the old coat of arms of the monument shield, not to sell it anywhere and not to throw it away. Otherwise, we will still have to return it to its rightful place.
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