About monuments

By the way, the monuments are rarely successful. In fact: what is common between a living person and a motionless stone or frozen bronze? That is why the monuments are not customary to erect people - so that the prototype is not upset. The dictators, however, think differently, but this is because they are never upset, and the feelings of taste are completely devoid of.

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Monuments surrounded me since childhood. In 1958, I entered school No. 59 in Starokonyunny Lane. This is a former gymnasium built on the ladies of the Medvednikov merchants. In 1952, this Soviet school was named Gogol. Entering the lobby, you saw an unconvincing bust of a long -haired writer with a long funny nose that prevented him from looking into his crazy eyes. And here is the assembly hall, on the walls of which there were high reliefs of antediluvian muses. The smell of a suffocated mastic tickled his nose, muscular cloth with lifted trousers in a cobbled cleverly slid on the parquet with a hard brush, shod on the right foot, after which classes were clearly dore-revolutionary rhythmic, which Lenin's gypsum statue looked severely from a height.

Lenin was more than me, he was more than any teacher, it was not possible to talk with him about his affairs. You picked up at the foot of his dimensionless shoes, and he looked over a cut head and was silently silently. Previously, Stalin and Stalin carefully looked at the behavior of the students with Vladimir Ilyich, but I no longer found him. It was 1958, he had not yet been turbulently from the mausoleum, but the old -flowered lane was ahead of the events on Red Square for three years. Where the broken gypsum has gone, I do not know. Perhaps the statue of Khrushchev, and then Brezhnev, was glued from the fragments.

In the classroom, the teacher brought us to the monument to Dzerzhinsky during a city tour. She called him only "iron." A few days before, we wrote a dictation dedicated to him. A quote from his diary crashed into memory: “To be a bright beam for others, to radiate light yourself - this is the great happiness for a person that he can achieve.” It is said figuratively and intelligibly. I received the five for the dictation, but no radiation from the monument came. Or did I just not notice it from afar? There were no walking approaches to the monument. Unless rush to the stream of cars that made a round dance around the truly iron felix. Like horses on a circus arena. It is strange that at the foot there were frayed armfuls of flowers. How were they delivered there? By air, or what? Or the Chekists and the rules of the road is not a hindrance? The frantic Dzerzhinsky was green with anger or was it in the winter? The overcoat is kind on it, but the floors are open, even a headdress is absent. What did the sculptor Wuchetich think about, designing a monument? Which climate was counting on? Or did he believe that bronze did not hurt? And why did the deceased turn away from this huge building without a sign and with laid windows? For conspiracy? To look in the eyes of people?

Much later, the monument to the Iron Felix was dumped with Arcan ... At the same time, the monument to Lenin in the school assembly hall disappeared, which led me to thoughts. But what if the monuments are eating on wheels from now on? So that, it means it was easier to ride back and forth. From the present, to move to the past, and then back. That is, in an adult way to think about the future. You can even mount the motor into the pedestal, although it will come out a little expensive. Self -propelled statues to keep forever in a special warehouse, for the self -propelled zigzags of history are not in human powers - you still look, come in handy. Very, as it seemed to me, it turned out economically, you can save a lot of metal and native stone. In the end, the statues can be made from foam or inflatable, it will come out very cheap. Among the monumental sculptors, of course, there will be deaf dissatisfaction and unemployment, but this profession is not massive, it can be neglected.

The idea seemed to me sensible, and I told about it where I could, but, as always, no one listened to me.

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More than half a million people live in the city of Lipetsk. There is a huge metallurgical plant, as well as healing water and dirt. It was in Lipetsk that the "people's will." After numerous attempts on the king, they still killed him. Therefore, in Lipetsk there is a luxurious monument to the people of the people. And the killed king was Alexander II, who canceled serfdom. There is something to hate for. There is no monument to Alexander in Lipetsk. But there is a street of Engels. Locals call this area exclusively mutual. I wonder what they call themselves? And how developed is the sense of self -esteem? And do they have a feeling of a small homeland? The king was killed, but this is what came of all this ...

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Once, Japan knew only Buddhist sculptures, people were not erected to people. The first bronze monument of the European species was erected in 1880. A bronze figure of the legendary Prince Yamato Takera, who conquered (or allegedly conquered) barbarians in deep and allegedly conquered), was blown up on a stone pedestal. In 1945, the Americans occupied Japan, the monuments began to destroy that had at least some kind of relation to militarism, and demolished six thousand monuments. They wanted to demolish Yamato Takera, but they were told that this is a statue of Buddha. Despite the fact that Yamato Takera held a saber in his hand, the Americans believed. Perhaps they accepted the saber for the subject with which the Buddha drove flies away from himself-so as not to inadvertently sew any of them. Probably, the Buddha himself let the dust into American eyes.

At that time, Japanese in America was in prenatal condition. So due to the lack of education of the then marines, this monstrously tasteless monument can be seen today. True, there are not so many people who want to stare at him.

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The Calabrian town of Pizzo in Italy is sunk to a rock and from afar looks like a wonderful castle from a children's book. Locals know this very well, they value authenticity and therefore do not read books, they have not acquired a bookstore.

Calabria is an exclusively sunny place. No wonder the local native of Campanella placed his utopian city of the Sun to his homeland. In June, there are 25 sunny days, in July and August - 28 each. That to Paris, where Campanella finished not only his manuscript, but also his days, then there are many more gloomy indicators: 13, 14 and again 13 ... In Paris, Campanella had something to dream about.

Sunset in Pizzo is more beautiful than dawn, for the luminary is shown due to inexpressive hills, and it falls into the Tyrrne Sea. In these minutes, the sun looks like a red -hot cannon core. It seems that the sea will boil now. Leva from the nucleus of the volcano Stromboli lets another portion of black smoke into the pink sky. It is so beautiful that I keep this landscape behind my bosom, he warms me. It is so beautiful that even local residents pour ashore and do not disdain to admire the sunset. A rare time when they are silent. The bronze reflection falls on the faces and makes them similar to the monuments to themselves.

Since the Napoleonic Marshal Murat was shot in the Pizzo fortress in 1815, nothing terrible happened here. Every year on October 13, the artists of amateur performances with pleasure, mummers under the XIX century, rely their fake guns again and again on Murat. And the husband of Napoleon's sister exclaims: "Do not disfigure my face, aim in my heart!" A salvo of twelve trunks is heard, and Murat with a face that is not damaged by time is ineptly falling on the paving stones. The audience reacts with its characteristic medieval enthusiasm. Some are hooting, others dance. No one is crying, no one sorry for the marshal.

In addition to sunsets and the opera execution of Murat, nothing happens here. The rest of the time, the townsfolk pray in the church, put on tourists, feed them from the belly, blow wine, catch fish, eat ice cream, grow burning pepper, fragrant bergamot and the most ordinary oranges. They also scratch tongues in the central square. The monument to King Umberto I was erected there-it is easy to identify by monumental mustache, which are visible even from behind. The area is called not at all royal, but republican, but this does not bother anyone. In a word, the inhabitants of Pizzo live and die with a calm soul, saying: Tutto Ben, Tutto Ben ... They live on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, but it does not smell like antiquity. The empire fell, and at least henna.

Alexander Meshcheryakov