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Main page / Museums and sightseeing in Veliky Novgorod / Walking Route "Modern Monuments of the Sophia Side"
Walking Route "Modern Monuments of the Sophia Side"
Address:
Veliky Novgorod

Telephone:
+7 (816 2) 77 30 74; +7 905 290 86 86
(информационный центр «Красная Изба»/Red Izba tourist information centre)

WWW:
http://visitnovgorod.ru

Working hours:
круглосуточно/ 24 hours

Entrance Fee:
бесплатно/ free

GPS:
0.00000000, 0.00000000

Download the map of the route (.jpg)

We invite you to take a walk down the streets of Veliky Novgorod to look for interesting modern sculptures. The route unites small architectural forms of the Sophia side of the city.

On your way you will see monuments to famous people like Peter the Great and the inventor of the steam engine I. Polzunov, as well as amusing sculptures of the cheerful Wash'em'clean's family, an electrician who is getting a curious cat out of a utility pole and other friendly characters!

 

1. Monument to Ivan Polzunov (the crossing of Nekhinskaya and Oktyabrskaya streets). He created the first steam engine in Russia and the first two-cylinder engine in the world

Sculptor: Rim Akchurin (2011)

2. Ancient oak on Desyatinnaya Street (opposite house number 17). The age of the tree was determined by comparing its height and girt of the trunk. In 2013 a granite sign was installed, certifying its age of 400-years. The height of the four-century petiolate oak is 16 meters, the girt is 3.2 meters.

The oak stands opposite Desyatinny Convent, where Sofya Butakova, the grandmother of the future famous composer Sergei Rachmaninov, often took her grandson. There was the Rachmaninov’s house close by, where until 1912 the mother of the composer Lyubov Petrovna lived.

Nearby, on 12, Prusskaya street, two more oaks of the same age grow. The trees can also be called memorial, as they are associated with the name of the famous artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, whose childhood also took place here. He writes warmly about Novgorod and Prusskaya Street in his book of memoirs: these oaks are mentioned in one of the chapters.

3. The most famous in the city bronze lions guard the main entrance to the building of the Historical museum (in the Kremlin). The sculptures were brought in the post-war years from the village of Gruzino, Chudovsky district, from the estate of Count Arakcheev. They were cast back in the 19th century.

4. Monument to Vladimir Lenin was opened on Pobedy-Sophiyskaya Square on November 7, 1928. This monument is considered one of the first monuments to the leader of the proletariat in the country.

During the Nazi occupation of Veliky Novgorod, the bronze monument of the leader disappeared. Only in 1956 a new sculpture was put in its place, made by the sculptor D. Schwartz.

5. Sadko and Sea Princess Volkhova fountain is located in the Kremlin Park. The fountain was opened in 1978. The composition was created by the famous Novgorod sculptor Eduard Kurylev. Currently, it is the main fountain of the city.

6. Monument to Admiral Putyatin (near the Club of Young Sailors, Velikaya St.). Yevfimiy Putyatin was an outstanding statesman, admiral, diplomat, and Russian navigator. He was descended from a noble Novgorodian family and spent his childhood on the Novgorod land.

Putyatin circumnavigated the globe in a three-year voyage from 1822 to 1825. On the battleship Azov he participated in the battle of Navarino. And on the frigate Pallada led an expedition to Japan. Putyatin signed the first trade agreement in the history of Russian-Japanese relations.

The author of the work is sculptor Sergey Serezhin.

Not far from the monument and the Novgorod club of young sailors there are also a torpedo and 2 floating mines, as exhibits in the open.

7. The sculpture Capercailye is installed at the crossing of Stratilatovskaya and Bolshaya Sankt-Peterburgskaya Streets, next to a pet store and a flower shop. The author of the work is sculptor E. Kurylev. 

8. The monument to Peter the Great (6, Gzen River Embankment) is a bronze sculpture about 3 meters high, the Emperor is holding a wheel in his hands.

Sculptors: Alexander Psheratsky and Yuri Romanenko (2009)

9. Sculpture Eye to Eyet (46, Bolshaya Sankt-Peterburgskaya St.)

To create a figure of an electrician, the sculptor had to master some professional skills of his character. First, Vadim Borovykh learned to climb the pole. By the way, the pole is real, wooden as well as the hooks with insulators for a fiber-optic cable. Only the man and the cat are made of fiberglass. Characters have no names yet, but the composition itself already has a name. Vadim Borovykh and Nikolai Sumarokov called it "Eye to Eye".

Sculptor: Vadim Borovyh with the assistance of philanthropist Nikolai Sumarokov (2010)

10. Sculpture The Street Cleaner (20, Cherepichnaya St., on the territory of the Novgorod Street Cleaning and Sweeping Company)

Typically, monuments to a street cleaner look alike: a cap or a hat, an apron, boots, a broom or a shovel. And they are usually made of bronze or stone. But there are some that are made from what street cleaners usually sweep - from the trash. This is exactly the case - Novgorod street cleaner was made from metal waste, various gears and sheets of metal.

The monument is a tribute to the hardest work not only of street cleaners, cleaning machine drivers, garbage truck drivers, but also everyone who keeps our city clean.

The Novgorod “man with a broom” has already attracted the attention of not only the townspeople (he was immediately nicknamed Stepanych), but also tourists visiting Veliky Novgorod. Staff workers even joke about this: “Tourists take pictures of Stepanych so willingly that it seems, soon he will compete for popularity with the Novgorod Kremlin. ”

Sculptor: Victor Kornilov (2007)


11. Monument to the family of Wash'em'clean (30, Aleksandra Korsunova Avenue). There is a sculpture in Veliky Novgorod, near city sauna, inspired by Korney Chukovsky’s famous fairy tale. Unusual sculptural composition made of iron in the workshop of the famous Novgorod blacksmith Viktor Kornilov (2008). The tidiness fans will like the figures of Wash'em'clean’s (Russian: Moydodyr) wife and son. The baby stroller of the little Wash'em'clean's kid can also serve as a bench: take some rest and a nice picture!

12. Sculpture Snails on the slope. This sculpture is made of a four-ton boulder. A family of three snails are climbing up an impregnable stone. The composition is complemented by another stone with a Japanese poet.

The most attentive ones will notice the famous lines on the second stone:

O snail
Climb Mount Fuji
But slowly, slowly

According to the sculptor Vyacheslav Smirnov, the composition of the two sculptures tells us that everyone can achieve anything due to their persistence. Kobayashi Issa himself became a poet, being a son of a peasant. In those days, it was simply unthinkable.

Sculptor: Vyacheslav Smirnov with the assistance of philanthropist Nikolai Sumarokov (2018 год)

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