Monument to Peter 1 "The Bronze Horseman". Where is the monument to Peter 1

It all started with the fact that the Senate of the Russian Empire decided to erect a monument in honor of the reigning Empress Catherine II. However, the far-sighted and understanding sense in the political situation and the mood of the people, Catherine refused this honor, saying that it would be inappropriate to put a monument to her before her great predecessor Peter I was immortalized. Today the history of the creation of this masterpiece is remembered not only in St. Petersburg, but also Wherever there are monuments to Peter 1.

Catherine II conceived to create something grandiose, and she succeeded. Monument to Peter 1 "The Bronze Horseman" is a masterpiece of monumental art. And the story of his creation is similar to an adventure romance.

Where to get the architect

To the question of choosing a suitable master, Ekaterina approached very seriously. Eventually, on the recommendation of the professor of the Paris Academy, Denis Diderot, with whom she regularly corresponded, and his colleagues Voltaire, the master was invited to St. Petersburg. The monument to Peter the Great was to be created by Etienne Maurice Falcone, a French architect who enjoyed the protection of the Marquise de Pompadour himself, who was the legalized favorite of the French king.

The long-awaited opportunity

Falconet all his life dreamed of creating something monumental, but he had to work with sculptures of ordinary size. Therefore, the future author of the monument to Peter 1 gladly signed the contract, despite the small amount of the fee.

Work on it, he, in fact, started back in Paris. In Russia, the sculptor comes with a ready-made sketch and a fully formed idea of how the monument should look.

Hot debates

However, the problem was that literally anyone who had any influence on the final decision on the composition of the statue, represented it differently. The history of the monument "The Bronze Horseman" has retained some of these proposals.

Catherine herself wanted to see a statue of the emperor, made in the ancient Roman style. He was to be dressed in a Roman toga, holding the scepter in his hands and radiating the greatness of a warrior-conqueror with his whole appearance.

The representative of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the actual state councilor Yakov Yakovlevich Shtelin gravitated toward allegories. He insistently proposed to depict the king surrounded by other statues, which, according to his plan, should represent a victory, prudence and diligence.

Personal secretary of Catherine II, Ivan Ivanovich Betskoi, who was president of the Imperial Academy of Arts, wanted the statue to be executed in the classic posture of a full-grown man.

Denis Diderot, who recommended to hire Falcone, also contributed to the boiling cup of discord by offering to perform the monument in the form of a fountain. So there was a possibility that where the monument to Peter the Great is today, an elegant pond might appear.

And some very creative advisers suggested that one eye of the emperor be sent to the Admiralty building, and another - to the Twelve Colleges. It's terrible to imagine what this expression should be.

However, Falcone was not going to retreat. He wanted the first monument to Peter 1 to reflect the real personal qualities of the emperor, and not turn into a three-dimensional visualization of the collage of flattering epithets to the sovereign. And the master managed to defend his position.

Creating a Model

The next three years the sculptor went to create a plaster model. He worked with a young assistant - his pupil Marie Anne Colo, who with him came from France. A lot of time Falcone devoted to studying the personality and character of the emperor. He considered the plaster busts and masks of Peter I made during his lifetime.

The sculptor turned to General Melissino, who was as tall as a king, and he agreed to pose for him. But the face of Peter I did not manage to the sculptor. Therefore, he entrusted this work to his 20-year-old assistant, Marie Anne.

For the valuable contribution to the creation of the monument, Catherine II ordered Mari Anne Kolo to become a member of the Russian Academy of Arts and appointed a very solid life pension.

Work with a horse

Again, the sculptor had to withstand the opposition of the courtiers. This time the reason for the dispute was the breed of the horse on which Peter the Great was to sit. Representatives of the nobility insisted that this figure should be sculptured in the likeness of horses, long accepted in the ancient art.

But the master was not going to create a calm and solemnly marching draft horse. The monument to Peter the Great on horseback was to become unique. Etienne Maurice Falcone set himself the trickiest task of portraying a rider on a rearing animal. To implement this idea, a wooden platform was built, on which the rider was supposed to take off, lifting his horse up.

Two magnificent trotters of the Orel breed were chosen from the royal stables. History even retained their nicknames - Caprice and Brilliant. Bereytors (this is the name of a specialist who teaches riding and training horses) Afanasy Telechnikov, Khaylov, and others literally flew hundreds of times a day on the platform and noble animals, obedient to the will of the rider, each time stood on their hind legs, dying for a moment.

This is the very moment Etienne Maurice tried to catch. He himself squirmed, peering at the trembling muscles on the horse's legs, examining the curve of his neck and the proud look of huge eyes. All the sculptor he saw immediately sketched to later be able to work peacefully with the model.

First he sketched pictures. The monument to Peter 1 was depicted on them from different angles. Then I transferred my plans to paper. And only then did he start working on a three-dimensional model of sculpture.

More than one year the exercises of the riders continued. During this time, several people managed to change to this position. But the effort was not wasted. Monument to Peter 1 "The Bronze Horseman" has no analogues in the world.

Thunder stone

Meanwhile, in parallel, another equally grandiose project was carried out.

The height of the monument to Peter 1 is 10.4 meters. Under it, he had to pick up a foot. Etienne Maurice assumed that it should be a lump, made in the form of a wave. It was supposed to symbolize the fact that Peter I opened the sea to Russia.

However, nothing suitable could not be found. Already considered the option of making a pedestal of several pieces of granite. And then someone suggested a tender to find and deliver a suitable stone. The corresponding announcement was immediately published in the St. Petersburg Gazette.

It was not so long ago that a peasant from the village of Lakhty appeared. He said that in their forests there is a stone that meets all the requirements described. In addition, the peasants claimed that the Emperor Peter the Great himself had not once climbed this stone in order to survey the surroundings.

By the way, this statement is not without some basis. After all, near the village of Lakhta was located the estate of Peter the Great. However, it is not important whether the emperor once climbed there or not, but an expedition was sent to the stone, authorized to decide whether it is suitable for the intended purpose.

Local peasants called it Thunder stone. According to legend, a long time ago lightning struck the rock and chipped this piece.

Difficulties of transportation

Thunder stone was considered suitable to serve as a pedestal, but its dimensions created serious difficulties for transportation. Imagine a block of 8 meters high (like a three-story house), 13 meters long (like 3-4 standard entrances) and a width of 6 meters. Of course, there was no question of any heavy equipment, and the distance to the Senate Square in St. Petersburg (the place where the monument to Peter the Great stands today) was very decent.

Part of the way was supposed to be done on the water, but before the place of loading onto the ship the boulder had to be dragged along the rough terrain for a distance of 8.5 kilometers.

Exit found Ivan Ivanovich Betskoi. At his suggestion, special wooden rails were constructed in the form of gutters. They were beaten with copper sheets and 32 bronze balls of the appropriate diameter were prepared. The mechanism had to work on the principle of the bearing.

In the beginning, a reduced model was tried. The original should have been ten times larger. After the tests successfully passed, we began to manufacture a full-size mobile mechanism.

Ground part of the way

Meanwhile, the first thing from the stone began to remove the sticky earth and other layers. This operation made it possible to ease it by 600 tons. Five hundred soldiers and peasants were daily involved in the clearance work.

After that, they began to clear the site directly around the Thunder stone, update it with forests and prepare the ground for laying the rails. This work took four months.

Throughout the route it was necessary to first clear the road width of 20 meters, strengthen it with thick piles, and already on top of that lay out part of the collapsible rails. After the stone was moved, the tracks were removed from the track and moved forward.

The whole Europe followed the progress of the transportation of the giant stone. It was an unprecedented event. Never before had such a huge monolith moved so far.

Not an easy road

With the help of levers Thunder-stone was placed on a special platform, which was installed on the rails. This operation took a lot of time and incredible efforts, but in the end a piece of rock, lying in damp ground for more than one century, was torn from its place. So began his long journey to the capital, where he was to establish a monument to Peter 1 "The Bronze Horseman."

Thirty copper spheres were installed in the rails of the rails at a distance of about half a meter from each other. To ensure that none of these balls stopped and approached closely to the next, should have been watched specially appointed for this people. They had iron poles, which, if necessary, could be pushed or braked the ball-shaped part.

For the first jerk, the structure loaded with a stone was able to be moved by half a meter. During the next it was possible to overcome a few more meters. And before the bay, where it was to load Thunder-stone onto a special barge, it was about nine kilometers ....

In order not to waste time, 46 stonemasons began to process the Thunder stone immediately on the road. Their task was to give the rock a form, conceived by Etienne Falcone. At this stage the sculptor again had to endure an exhausting ideological battle, since all the courtiers unanimously declared that they should leave the stone as it is and do not change anything in it.

However, this time the master managed to insist on his own. And although the opponents tried to present this as a scolding of a foreigner over the beauty of Russian nature, Catherine gave permission for the treatment of the pedestal.

In some sources it is indicated that on the way the boulder cracked and split into two parts. Whether this happened as a result of the work done on the stone or for some other reason, history is silent. Also, we know nothing about the reaction of the people who participated in the transportation to this incident. Whether they perceived this as a catastrophe or, conversely, as a blessing, we no longer know.

The fallen part of the Thunder stone was left lying on a clearing, where it can be seen today, and the team continued its journey to the Gulf of Finland.

Preparing for transportation by water

Meanwhile, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, a wharf and a special vessel were built to transport a huge stone. The weight of this cargo would not have withstood any barge that existed then. Therefore, the talented ship master Grigory Korchebnikov began to develop blueprints for the construction of a pram, a flat-bottomed vessel that could keep a significant weight afloat.

The prams were meant for moving heavy artillery. In fact, these were compact mobile fortresses equipped with cannons around the perimeter. And the number of guns could reach 38 units. Add to this the weight of the cores, gunpowder and people that served the guns, and you can get an approximate idea of the carrying capacity of the pram.

However, even this was not enough. I had to design a more powerful vessel. In order to be able to load the Thunder stone, the pommas were doused by drawing water into it. When the stone was placed on the ship, the water was drained, and a journey began along the sea segment of the road. The sailing passed safely, and on September 26, 1770, the stone was brought to the Senate Square, where the monument to Peter the Great is still today.

The last stages of work on the monument

During the action of this whole epic with transportation Etienne Falcone never ceased to work on sculpture. The height of the monument to Peter 1 amazed the imagination of the townspeople. In truth, many simply did not understand why to build such a hulk. Do not forget that at that time in the country there was no monument to anyone whatsoever. And the gypsum model, made in full size, which everyone could look freely in the yard of the workshop, caused a lot of gossip.

But the perplexity of ordinary citizens was not compared to the reaction of masters. When it was time to start casting the statue, no one agreed to take up this work.

Falcone invited to cast a bronze monument to Peter 1, the description of which he gave only in general terms, a skilled French master. However, when he arrived and saw the scale of the work, and also got acquainted with the requirements of the sculptor, he simply called Etienne mad and went home.

In the end, Etienne Falcone managed to find a foundry who agreed to take on a truly bold project. When there was preparation for the transportation of Thunder stone, the master of the guns, Emelian Hailov, cast guns for the mechanisms used to transport it. Even then Falconet noted his diligence and accuracy. And now he suggested that he cooperate with the casting of the monument itself.

The work was difficult. And it was not just a giant. The very construction of the monument created unprecedented problems. If you look at the monument to Peter the Great in Petersburg, you will see that he has only three points of support - the horse's hind legs and tail. To keep the necessary balance at the same time is not an easy task. And there was no opportunity to train. The masters had only one attempt.

To ensure the stability of the sculpture, Falcone resorted to several original solutions. Firstly, he introduced into the composition the snake that the horse tramples, and secondly, by his intention the walls of the front part of the statue were incommensurably thinner than the thickness of the rest of the monument, and, thirdly, four tons of iron were additionally added to the horse's croup Keep her balance. Thus, Peter 1 on the horse was to be reliably installed.

Disaster during casting

Three years continued the preparatory work for the casting of the statue. At last everything was ready, and the masters began to work. The form of the monument was in a special foundation pit. Somewhat higher was the smelter, from which the pipes sloped. On these pipes, the heated metal had to flow into the mold, evenly filling it.

In order for these pipes not to burst, under each of them a fire was built and continuously heated up. But in the process of casting one of the fires went out. This went unnoticed, and the cooled pipe gave a crack through which molten metal began to flow. And this, in turn, caused a fire.

People rushed from the workshop in all directions, Falcone fainted, and only one Hailov did not lose his head. He quickly extinguished the beginning fire, closed the crack in the pipe with fresh clay, tore off his clothes, wet it and wrapped it around the cracked pipe.

This was a real feat. And not only because he managed to keep cool in an emergency situation. Fighting fire was not easy. The caster received numerous serious burns and lost his eye. But thanks to him, most of the statue was saved.

Monument to Peter 1 "The Bronze Horseman" today

A lot of historical events happened to see the bronze Peter I, sitting on a forever ridden horse. Visiting card remains for visitors to St. Petersburg, the monument "The Bronze Horseman." Photos on its background are hurrying to make tourists, feverishly clicking shutters of cameras. And native Petersburgers traditionally come here to spend part of the wedding ceremony.

Perhaps you want to see the monument "The Bronze Horseman" (St. Petersburg) in person. Considering this work of the great master, do not allow the haste and hecticness, which we are so used to, to deprive you of the pleasure of attentive contemplation of this beautiful sculpture. Try to bypass it and peer into the details from different sides. You will notice the depth and richness of the design in this simple, at first glance, monument.

Pay attention to the details: instead of the saddle on the back of the horse you will see an animal hide, and the clothes in which the emperor is clothed, in fact, did not exist in any historical period. The sculptor tried to combine the traditional Russian apparel with the elements of vestments of the ancient Romans. And we must admit, he managed to do it very organically.

Having examined the monument "The Bronze Horseman", whose photo is so popular among tourists, without haste, you will take away from the ancient capital not just another photograph of the famous landmark, but you can really touch the historical past of a great country.