Monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden. Monument to Krylov in Moscow at the Patriarchal Ponds

The monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden of the city of St. Petersburg was established in 1855, eleven years after the death of the great Russian fabulist. It is installed in front of the Tea House, and it should be noted that this place was not chosen immediately. First they wanted to put the sculptural composition near the Public Library - the last place of work of the writer, then next to the university building on the Vasilyevsky Island of the Northern Capital. Also considered was the option of placing a monument in the Necropolis of Artists (the burial place of Krylov). But, in the end, it was decided to put a sculptural group in the Summer Garden, where the fabulist loved to walk and, probably, think over the plots of his works.

Many Russian celebrities were self-taught

A well-known writer, journalist, academician, Ivan Andreevich Krylov, whose monuments can now be found not only in the Northern capital, was born into a retired military family in 1769. " His life began in the Urals and in Tver, where the family lived more than poor. It is interesting that the great Russian writer never received an education. With his knowledge of two foreign languages, literature and mathematics, the most enlightened man of his time was obliged to self-education and work from a small age in the post of a subculturalist.

Monument to the man

Monuments to Ivan Krylov, whose works during his lifetime were printed abroad (in Paris), depict a man of his age. After all, it was in his mature years that fame and fortune came to the writer. In his youth he worked as a petty official, after moving to St. Petersburg. At the age of fourteen, he wrote a libretto for the opera "The Coffee House", dedicated to the mores of small provincial officials, whom the writer knew very well in his own life. Closer to his thirtieth birthday, he releases several comedies, which, however, do not have success, publishes a magazine in which he denounces the evils of civil servants ("The Mail of Spirits").

They were dissatisfied with the Russian rulers

In 1792, Ivan Andreevich Krylov, whose monuments are established in Moscow, Tver, Novosibirsk, begins to engage in political satire, so successful that the Empress Catherine II herself pays attention to him, which leads to the relocation of the journalist from St. Petersburg to Riga and Moscow in connection With discontent of the first persons of the state. In the next 10 years, Krylov departs from journalistic practice and travels a lot, visiting Ukraine, Tambov, Saratov and other cities.

After the death of the Empress I. Krylov becomes secretary of Prince Golitsyn and teacher of his children, writes comedies, including anti-government ("Subtype, or Triumph"), translates Lafontaine's fables and writes his own works of this genre. And by 1808 has already released seventeen fables, among which is the eminent "Elephant and the Mosque".

The writer created and translated about 200 fables

The monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden, executed by P. Klodt, has as its base a granite cube on which bas-reliefs with scenes of the most famous author's fables are made, where the fable was a work in verse or prose that contains any moralizing (in the beginning or End). In this genre, Krylov's talent was expressed especially vividly. In total, he composed and translated about 200 fables, among which the motives of translations from the French predominated first, and then unique stories appeared reflecting the realities of Russian life of that time.

The monument to the fables of Krylov and their creator was made on the donations of fans of his work. The admirers of his talent helped the writer in publishing his works. Beginning in 1809, Krylov published nine books containing the above two hundred fables. And in 1825 Count Orlov printed for his account in the French capital two volumes of works of the fabulist in Italian, Russian and French. In the last years of his life, Krylov received the post of state councilor, a good boarding house of six thousand rubles, and led a rather unsociable life, being known as an eccentric, which allowed him to engage in creativity without hindrance.

Zoo at home with sculptor Klodt

The monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden gives an opportunity to get acquainted with the stories from thirty-six of his fables. It is known that the sculptor Klodt was a very meticulous man and a master. Therefore, in order to make the characters of the literary works as realistic as possible, he wrote out to himself living animals that settled down both in the courtyard and directly in the sculptor's house. There were cats, dogs, donkeys, horses, a crane, a frog and even a wolf, a bear and a bear cub. Klodt heroically tolerated such a neighborhood, except for the goat, whom he did not want to be under the same roof, perhaps because of the smell. This "model" he brought a woman who lived nearby. And, as the legend says, the goat did not want to go where the predators were, and posing as a model.

Contemporaries of the St. Petersburg Monument

Where there is a monument to Krylov in St. Petersburg, many of his contemporaries visited, who left reviews about the monument, sometimes peculiar. For example, in the guidebook of that time it is indicated that the writer is portrayed "truthfully". Poet Maikov composed poems about the sculptural composition, in which he points out that the fabulist embodied in metal looks like a grandfather telling the people and children who came to him about the foolishness and strangeness of animals. Satirist P. Schumacher yazvil that the monument to Krylov in the Summer Garden displays how the writer "from the granite height" looks at frolicking children and thinks: "Oh, dear children, what are you grown up, you will be cattle." Taras Shevchenko did not like the design of the sculptor, and he found the monument intended for children, but not for adults. Nevertheless, this sculptural composition has been in the Summer Garden for almost 160 years, invariably pleasing the visitors.

Where is the monument to grandfather Krylov erected in Moscow? The most famous monument, visited by tourists, is, of course, at the Patriarch's Ponds. However, the original monuments of the writer can be found in ordinary Moscow courtyards. Most recently, in 2013, Andrei Aseriants, the sculptor, performed two compositions based on the legendary "Elephant and Moska" and "Foxes and Crows". In the Kolomenskoye district, in the courtyard of the house on Sudostroitelnaya Street, you can see a large enough elephant behind which the small Moska was tied up, and a crow sitting on a pole with still not lost cheese and waiting for the fox below. In addition, here you can find sculptural compositions of a typewriter and a sheet of paper with a pen and inkwell.

The author and heroes of his works at the Patriarchs

The monument to Krylov at the Patriarch's Ponds was established much earlier than the figures on Shipbuilding Street. The architect Chaltikyan and the sculptors Mitlyansky and Drevin worked on his creation. The composition was established in 1976 and is a fabulist, sitting imposingly in an armchair, far from which the heroes of his works are located. Here you can find out the elephant leaving for the space and rubbed it to the shine of Moska, the duet of Pava and Ravens, to which periodically the newlyweds manage to attach a lock, indicating the conclusion of marriage. Popular is the nose and ears of the wolf from the fable "The Wolf and the Lamb", while the lamb is worn almost entirely. Visitors again like to rub the nose of a fox out of a fable, and at the crow a lot of cheese is poured out by the hands of numerous passers-by.

The monument to Krylov on the Patriarchs reflects a man of age, carelessly dressed. It is believed that the sculptors accurately noticed the lifelong habit of the great writer not to be too interested in the world around him, with the exception of gastronomic pleasures. To eat Ivan Andreevich, according to his contemporaries, really loved. And in the mirror, perhaps, looked infrequent, unlike his heroine - the Monkey, which is also represented on the Patriarchs with his reflection.

Part of the composition can be present in the surroundings of the sculpture

Perhaps the sculptors of figurines from fables to the Patriarchs, as well as once the master Klodt, did not really like the goats, since in the composition dedicated to the product "Quartet", a monkey, a bear and an ass are singled out, while the horned character is only "traced "On a metal sheet. A separate "stele" is devoted to the relationship of the famous couple from the fable "The Cuckoo and the Rooster". Here we can see a rooster in a bow tie and admiring his girlfriend. But the sparrow, who uttered words about mutual boasting, is not observed in the composition. Maybe it is in flocks of sparrows, which fly back and forth in the park by the ponds.

A pig spoiling a tree, and a monkey with glasses and locks

Among the numerous green plantations there is also one metal - this is an oak whose roots are undermined by a full-fledged pig from the work "Pig under the Oak". In accordance with the text of this tree a hundred years, while among the vegetation around may be older specimens, since the square in the former estate of the patriarch Herman was defeated in the early nineteenth century. And in it there are numerous monkeys, including one that had problems with eyesight, but at the same time could not handle glasses, on the arms of which on the monument the newlyweds also like to fasten the locks.

Tourists did not find mysticism near the monument to Krylov

It is not known whether there are real nightingales in the park, but the long-eared "critic" from the fable "The Donkey and the Nightingale" snuggled comfortably in an armchair with a staff on one of the parts of the sculptural composition. There are plenty of birds in this green zone, so there are many objects for possible criticism. The monument to Krylov at the Patriarch's Ponds is in a mystical place. Here events developed from Bulgakov's novel Master and Margarita. The alley, where Berlioz met Woland and his retinue, is very close. But tourists who have visited here say that they do not notice anything mysterious these days. It's just a square where grandmothers and children go for a walk, Russian tourists and, of course, foreigners. Today the park has a large modern children's playground and there are no stalls with the inscription "Beer and water", as in Bulgakov's work.

To know and remember

Monuments of Krylov in different cities (Tver, Novosibirsk) were established in Soviet times and in the history of modern Russia. In particular, the Tver sculpture composition was opened on the occasion of the centenary of the death of the master in 1959 on the eponymous street of this city (the jubilee date fell on military 1944). Here the fabulist is depicted in a pensive pose, standing on a nearly three-meter pedestal (the figure itself has an increase of four meters), in the middle of the streets on which he spent his young years. In 2010, in the science city of Novosibirsk, which the fabulist never visited, his bust of a rather youthful kind was installed. It is also located on the street of the same name, so that people remember who, in Gogol's opinion, embodied the wisdom of the people themselves.