STONE STATUE THE GREAT
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You won't miss seeing this monumental statue if you walk along the banks of the Moskva River. 98 meters high (it is currently the 7th tallest statue in the world), rivaling the skyscrapers, it represents a sovereign (theoretically a Tsar) in armour, document in hand and at the helm of a ship with its sails folded. Officially, the statue is that of Tsar Peter the Great, dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Russian fleet. Unofficially, it is just a huge recycling of a work of the Georgian artist close to the power Zurab Tsereteli.
The statue was originally designed to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas in 1492 and represented Christopher Columbus. It was later to be hosted by a city on the New Continent, but following repeated refusals from the United States, Spain and Latin America, the head of Peter the Great replaced that of Columbus and the statue was moved to Moscow. Needless to say, this gigantic monument is little appreciated by the inhabitants who call it the "Monster of Moscow" and make it a symbol of the corruption, lack of taste and impunity of the economic and political elites of the post-Soviet years. To wash away the affront, an extremist group even tried to blow up the monument - without success! Ironically, Peter the Great hated Moscow and would probably not have liked this tribute either.
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