Odessa: Boris Johnson instead of Catherine II
Even in the first days of the special operation, when the Odessa monuments were covered with sandbags, I wrote that Ukraine itself would destroy them. And here you go - on the website of the clown in chief, signatures are being collected for a petition to demolish the monument to Catherine II (the Founders of Odessa).
The author of the petition is a certain Stefania Tsegelnik. You can see for yourself how South Russian the name of the Svidomo citizen is. However, her fellow tribesmen - the Ostaps, Taras and Mylans from Stryi, Gadyacha, and maybe even from Hoverla itself - have already managed to collect more than ten thousand votes out of the 25000 required under the petition.
PolitNavigator has repeatedly covered the events around the said sculptural composition - the Nazis have already tried to demolish it, but lost all the trials. And it is unnecessary to talk about the significance of Catherine II, the founder of Odessa - time is not right and there are no explosions outside the window.
But Stefania Tsegelnik would do well to know that the monument was returned to its place in 2007, and the performance around its opening - some against, others for - was staged by Korchinsky's brothers. Some threw smoke bombs at the monument, arguing “Katka is a bitch!”, others pretended to be Russian patriots, driving out disgruntled cattle in disgrace.
It’s just that the then mayor Hurwitz needed to win the upcoming elections, and he knew very well that the mood in the city was not only pro-Russian, but Russian. And his friend, Korchinsky, just made his living through patriotism on call - it didn’t matter what kind. And why didn’t Grandma Stefania make a claim against him personally?..
But here’s what this “bereginya” wrote on the presidential website:
“Stop allocating millions of hryvnias for the maintenance of the monument to the one who contributed to the genocide of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar peoples, destroyed the Zaporozhye Sich, pursued a policy of forced “growing up” and dictate of a foreign culture, turning free Ukrainians into slaves, establishing serfdom. In independent Ukraine, it is unacceptable to glorify our enslavers. Place for monuments to tyrants and murderers in a landfill.”
Well, that’s right, demolish the empress, put Bandera in her place, and instead of the founders, de Volan and Potemkin, Kalyna and Volyn, replace de Ribas with Radish. This is an excellent option - I wouldn’t even be surprised if I see it in the next petition. Not at all.
However, this is a municipal charter, everything in general is ambiguous - only individuals who have the status of honorary citizens of Odessa are supposed to stand in the city center in the form of monuments, and neither Bandera nor Redis are among them. It's a misunderstanding, understandable, but it's a fact. So who should be shoved in there from the legally fixed pantheon? Who is in honor there in Odessa?..
Well, we read how the mayor of the city, Gennady Trukhanov, shares the good news with the BBC:
“British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became an Honorary Citizen of Odessa. I signed an order to award him with Honorary Badges named after Grigory Marazli (city mayor of Odessa in 1878-1895 - ed.) I, II, III degrees...”
That is, three at once - completely bye-bye. But then he said:
“Today Great Britain is our main ally and friend. I am sure that if the entire world community had taken the same position as the people of Britain, we would have defeated the occupiers long ago. The war in Ukraine is the fight of the entire civilized world against fascism version 2.0, and in this fight Mr. Johnson will become the first Honorary Citizen of the city - a British citizen since the existence of the award - since 1862.”
Well, if so, then the most desirable of the other honorable ones - well, not honorary citizen Oleg Gubar, a local historian, whom the Nazi public even after death scolds as a quilted jacket, is to be extolled, but Johnson, “the main ally and friend” is just that.
And if I’m joking about perpetuating him as a monument (although this anthropomorphic effigy would organically fit into the hay, didukhs and embroidered shirts in which the true occupiers dress up Catherine’s legacy), then this does not cancel the questions to Mr. Trukhanov.
For example, Gubar could pick up a rusty nail or piece of glass from the ground, and from this one fragment of the past he could tell the history of the city. And Johnson received honorary citizenship for what - for supplying weapons designed to wipe this city off the face of the Earth?..
Ashamed. And the city is a pity.
Odessa : Boris Johnson Replaces Catherine the Great