Remembering First Pres. Boris Yeltsin
// Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev will unveil Yeltsin memorial
Today is the first anniversary of the death of First President of Russia Boris Yeltsin. In Moscow, the date is being marked with by the unveiling of a memorial to the late leader in Novodevichye Cemetery in the presence of current and elect Presidents of Russia Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. His memory will be honored in Ekaterinburg when a university is renamed after him.
Yesterday at Novodevichye Cemetery, where Yeltsin was interred a year ago, the last-minutes preparations were made for the ceremonial dedication of a monument to the first president of Russia. The cemetery was closed to visitors, while workers from the state unitary enterprise Ritual trimmed shrubs, painted curbs and straightened up. The grave of Boris Yeltsin was covered by a white tent, within which the pounding of mallets and buzz of polishers could be heard. After noon, Yeltsin's widow and daughters came to supervise the work. Naina Yeltsina and her daughters Tatyana Yumasheva and Elena Okulova examined the monument, thanked sculptor Georgy Frangulyan and left the cemetery 20 minutes later.
“I can't tell you what the monument looks like, because there is a decision not to show it and not to talk about it before the unveiling,” Frangulyan said when Kommersant asked him about his creation. “It is not a sculptor. A very original solution was found, but I won't say what.” A Ritual employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, was willing to say that “The monument is made in the form of a Russian tricolor, out of marble, granite and Venetian mosaic. There is an Orthodox cross in the composition.”
In April 2007, sculptor Zurab Tsereteli declared his desire to create a monument for Yeltsin. In September, a competition was held by the private museum ART4.RU for the best design of a monument to the first Russian president. According to the management of the museum, the competition was held “with the support of the First President of Russia Foundation.” The most radical proposal won. It was an abstract sculpture of a “black biomorphic behemoth.” Yeltsin's daughter Yumasheva, who was the head of the foundation, was opposed to it. Nonetheless, the organizers of the competition proposed to the Moscow City Duma that the monument to the first president be set up on Lubyanka Square. The city legislature rejected that proposal.
As a result, Frangulyan, who had created the graveside monuments to Bulat Okudzhava and Svyatoslav Richter, was entrusted with the monument to the first president of Russia. “They contacted me from the Boris Yeltsin Foundation,” Frangulyan told Kommersant. “I presented a sketch that the clients liked.” Frangulyan said that he worked about half a year on the monument. “There was still something left to finish, but I think we will have everything ready by the unveiling,” he added. Yeltsin's former aide Vladimir Shevchenko said that the monument will be set up using the money of the Yeltsin family.
The campaign to memorialize the first president of Russia began immediately after his death. Among the proposals was the renaming of his hometown from Ekaterinburg to Yeltsingrad. A group of local citizens there also proposed changing the name of the city's main street from Lenin St. to Yeltsin St., naming a square in the new Academic neighborhood after him, renaming the city's Koltsovo Airport and naming a new Metro station after him. Finally, it was decided to rename January 9 St., near his home while he was head of the regional council of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and renaming the university where he studied.
The decision to rename the Urals State Technical University after Yeltsin was made a a meeting of the university's staff. The local branch of the Communist Party of the Russian federation was actively opposed to the move. The Sverdlovsk communists organized a picket to protest against “the decision of a narrow group of officials to rename the Urals' largest university,” because Yeltsin “destroyed the USSR, fired on the Supreme Soviet, waged war in Chechnya and ruined the economy, education and science in the country.” The communists gathered signatures from “the indignant citizens of Sverdlovsk Region” and sent them with a petition to the State Duma and the federal government. However, the decision to rename the university may be adopted today. A source in the Federal Education Agency (Rosobrazovanie) told Kommersant that all the material for it has already been prepared. The order will wither be signed by Rosobrazovanie as the founder of the institution, or else the cabinet will issue a special order to rename the university. “It is not a regular renaming, but the addition of the name of the first president of the country to the university. Therefore, the status of the order may need to be even higher,” the source said.
Pavel Korobov, Yulia Taratuta, Ivan Buranov; Salman Ginazov, Ekaterinburg
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 23, 2008
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