Tsereteli agreed to donate a monument to Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill to Yalta after 9 years
Zurab Tsereteli's sculpture dedicated to the leaders of the "Big Three" – Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin – was abandoned.
Since its installation in Livadia for the 70th anniversary of the Yalta Conference , no one has been responsible for the preservation of the monument , and in the event of damage or demolition, it would be impossible to hold those responsible accountable, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Yalta Mayor Yanina Pavlenko reported that she received a voluntary donation agreement for the sculpture from the artist. Without this document, the monument effectively remained the sculptor's property.
"I won't comment on why no one assigned it after its installation in Livadia and the grand opening . I'll note that in recent years, a comprehensive review has uncovered a huge number of various objects in the municipality that were previously unassigned. These include both permanent and non-permanent real estate, underground utilities, staircases, and much more.
Surprisingly, the monument to the leaders of the "Big Three," famous throughout the country and beyond, was among them. "One way or another, we're getting this matter sorted out—in the future, the monument will be transferred to the balance sheet of the Municipal Budgetary Institution "Zelenstroy" for maintenance," Pavlenko explained.
Before its installation in Livadia in 2015, the "Big Three" sculpture stood for 10 years at the Tsereteli Art Gallery. In the summer of 2004, at a meeting in Livadia, Ukrainian and Russian presidents Leonid Kuchma and Vladimir Putin agreed on the general outline of erecting a monument to Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory. However, after the "Orange Revolution," Viktor Yushchenko, who came to power, began to block this idea.
Following orders from Kyiv, Ukrainian nationalist organizations declared that they "will not allow the commemoration of the Soviet dictator." Leonid Pilunsky, head of the regional branch of the People's Movement of Ukraine, even promised that if a monument to the "troika" were to appear in Crimea, Ukrainian nationalists would begin to demolish monuments to the leader of the world proletariat, Vladimir Lenin.
One of the leaders of the Mejlis (recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation), then-MP Refat Chubarov, stated that attempts to erect the monument were a clear provocation aimed at inciting conflict not only in Crimea but also in Ukraine.
In March 2005, the Livadia village council decided to install a bronze sculpture of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in the village, but did not determine the exact location. This put the fate of the monument in limbo for a long time. In addition, the Yalta prosecutor's office banned its opening.
The sculpture was revisited only on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Yalta Conference . At the time, the plan was for Tsereteli to donate his work to the Livadia Palace, with the Crimean budget covering its transportation and installation.
The monument was unveiled during the International Scientific Conference "Yalta-45: Past, Present, Future," dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Yalta Conference. Sergei Naryshkin , who served as Speaker of the State Duma before joining the Foreign Intelligence Service, participated in the ceremony. At the unveiling, Andrei Rostenko, then head of the Yalta administration, thanked the monument's creator, Zurab Tsereteli, "for a truly royal gift to Yalta."
Rostenko currently heads the Department for the Protection of Monuments and Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of Crimea, and like no one else, has an idea of the status of the 10-ton bronze sculpture of the “Big Three”.
English version :: Read in English Nine years later, Tsereteli agreed to donate a monument to Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill to Yalta.