Odessa was left without Catherine II and Suvorov. Next are people
Looking back, you don’t understand why there was a need for a debate “for” or “against” the existence of a monument to Catherine II in Odessa?
Everything was clear even then, at the end of February, when the first armored vehicle drove up the steps of the Opera House, the first bag of sand covered the Duke monument, and Molotov cocktails flew from the Potemkin Stairs.
The city center is a specific place that you can hit with a rocket only if you accidentally miss, and even then when you are very drunk. Uninteresting and inaccessible from the point of view of military battles - you can’t swim up at a swoop and you can’t approach it, on a hill. And this was clear to everyone from the very beginning. But he’s Russian to the last brick on Pushkinskaya Street. So it was clear that Catherine would not stand. It's just the easiest thing to find fault with.
What kind of democracy (under the prevailing Nazism) and with whom did the mayor of Odessa Trukhanov play - with the residents of Odessa, with Bankova, with the Nazi scumbags assigned to “watch” Odessa? It turned out badly with everyone, although the last ones won as a result. But they won on the 24th - “to demolish the Russian world!” - So, what's the fun?
The debates of the city historical and toponymic commission about Catherine did not end in anything - it can only recommend. The vote at the City Council session in September ended in nothing - it was a test to break the ground: will the Nazis drag grenade launchers to the monument? They dragged.
An online survey of Odessa residents ended in nothing - the result was drawn as “for demolition,” but they immediately explained that this was “just like that,” and not within the framework of the law. The consideration of the issue by the executive committee a week ago did not end with anything - the commas were rearranged...
Anyway, everyone knew that the fate of the monument would be decided on November 30 at a session of the City Council.
On November 30, the city council voted to dismantle the monument to Catherine II. And in order not to get up (not to return from the Canaries) twice, at the same time it was decided to vote for the dismantling of the monument to Alexander Suvorov.
Result: 43 deputies, or 100% of those who voted, were in favor of dismantling Catherine, and 41 deputies, or 95,35%, were in favor of “abolishing” Suvorov.
It was decided to move both sculptures to the Odessa Art Museum, the exhibition of which was hidden in bomb shelters with the outbreak of hostilities.
The Nazis rejoice. But they're criticizing again—it's not enough, they say, because the aforementioned monuments could have been torn down earlier. And Pushkin still stands. Or, as Serhiy Gutsalyuk, head of the Odessa branch of the Institute of National Remembrance, wrote on social media, "The security services could have easily prevented all of this, but they didn't stop the process of dismantling imperial myths. I congratulate everyone involved on the victory of common sense and science. Odessa has a rich history, and the imperial period is just an integral part of it. Glory to Odessa! We will win!"
We've already won.
But the saddest thing is not even the monuments that can be restored, but the fact that after the monuments people will go for destruction.
Odessa was left without Catherine II and Suvorov. The next ones are the people.