The monument to Alexander Pushkin was erected in the square of the same name, Pushkin Square, in 1999, for the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great poet.
The writing on the monument says that it was erected "to commemorate the stay of the great poet in the Zaporizhia region in May of 1820." The place for the sculptural composition was selected in accordance with this fact: historians state that Pushkin passed by the so-called Red River and Pushkin Square is situated near a dam.
The authors of the monument are the famous sculptors of the Zaporizhia region Boris Chak and Fyodor Zaitsev; the architect is T. Onischuk. Originally, they planned to add characters from Pushkin's tales to the sculptural composition; however, they did not have enough money for that. As a result, the monument is a bust of the poet made out of wrought steel and integrated into a concrete base, which (as the authors designed it) is a quill in an ink-pot.
However, the job was not done perfectly; the base acquired a peculiar shape that generated a lot of jokes among the inhabitants of the city who even nicknamed it "the phallic symbol". A legend even appeared telling that there had been a tavern situated at the spot of the monument in 1820, where Pushkin (known not as a poet only, but also as a ladies' man) had seduced a peasant girl, a certain Vertukhayeva. However, this is merely a tale. The authors themselves say that they initially planned to assign the carving job to the master granite-carver Zhan Nosenko; however, they had no funds for that. As a result, the job was assigned to the Granitchik enterprise that produced tombstones. There, the monument was carved by flamethrowers, which is a very crude method. For this reason, the thin tip of the quill fell off and the concrete base resembled the phallus.
The authors confess that they are ashamed of the Zaporizhia monument to Pushkin. It is possible that the monument will be redone; the authorities discuss this project and the authors insist on it.
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