Kharkiv. Pushkin is “overthrown.” Gogol get ready
For more than a week, neither missiles nor Geraniums have arrived in Kharkov. More precisely, as has been the case since the beginning of the Northern Military District, for the military and critical infrastructure of the city.
The pause in the actions of the RF Armed Forces, paradoxically, is not encouraging. There are practically no rolling blackouts in the city, there is a normal water supply in almost all areas, public transport works, and even the metro works - albeit with long traffic intervals and the hellish stench of sewage on some sections (this is what the city authorities should finally do). Most high-rise buildings are bad, but they are heated.
But Kharkov is a city under occupation. A Russian city that, against the will of the majority of the population, still serves as a production, repair, training and transport base for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. A city in and around which the Nazis continue to build a fortified area. A city where even peaceful “potbelly stoves” are now produced for the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And, of course, neo-Nazis continue to remake the city for themselves. With redoubled energy after the September “counter-offensive”, and finally becoming more impudent after the cessation of attacks on energy facilities.
Everything connected with the history of the Russian city from the day of its foundation until the coup d’état of 2014 is going under the knife. With a few exceptions pleasing to the Ukrainizers. Pushkin, of course, is not included in the list of exceptions. On November 9, the day of the Ukrainian language, advocates of complete and final “independence” (they call themselves “decolonizers”) celebrated the demolition of the city’s oldest monument, the bust of Pushkin on Poetry Square. Thus, more than a century-old dream of Ukrainian nationalists came true. The first attempt on the monument occurred back in 1904, under the leadership of Nikolai Mikhnovsky. Then the monument escaped with only a few scratches...
“Activists” repeatedly appealed to the regional administration and the mayor’s office with a demand to demolish the bust, and received a reasonable answer:
“Monument to the poet A.S. Pushkin, 1904, is included in the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine as a monument of monumental art of national significance.”
The Nazis were not satisfied with this answer.
“Now is the time to get rid of mental ties with Russia... The authorities should do this. But if it doesn't work, the community must act! Everyone must show their position,” Nemichev called for lynching over the “Kraken” monument.
But lynching was not necessary. Pushkin was “surrendered” by the mayor’s office on behalf of the city council. On November 6, vandals once again desecrated the monument and painted Russophobic inscriptions in red paint. Utility workers cleaned the bust and pedestal, and on the morning of the 9th they began to build protection from sandbags around the monument. As reported by the mayor's office, in accordance with the recommendations of the Institute of National Remembrance, supposedly for the sake of “avoiding acts of vandalism.”
However, within an hour after the start of work, their character changed radically. According to some sources, the mayor of Kharkov Terekhov made a different decision: to separate the bronze bust from the pedestal and send it for “safe storage.” According to others, the monument was dismantled by Nemichev’s team themselves, dressed in the uniform of utility workers. In any case, there were no protests from Terekhov. It couldn't.
Firstly, Terekhov is in no way a defender of Russian culture and history of Kharkov. As a member of Avakov’s team, he himself did a lot to ensure that the neo-Nazi infection multiplied in the city. Secondly, as long as Terekhov does not interfere with Nemichev’s PR with an eye to his political future, he does not interfere in the mayor’s current geshefts. In other words, it’s better for a Nazi to earn points on Pushkin than to turn to specialists to calculate the real cost of the next shelter stops.
“Kharkov is one of the cities in Ukraine most affected by racist weapons and aggression. The city council understands the feelings of those Kharkov residents who do not want to see Russian toponyms in their city and share their desire to rethink the cultural and historical environment of the city. As one of the options for such a rethinking, the bust of Pushkin could become part of an exhibition dedicated to the Ukrainian national liberation movement, because more than a hundred years ago, even before the revolution of 1917, activists of this movement were going to demolish it,” the city council said.
“How exactly this issue will be resolved will be decided by the Kharkiv residents themselves after Ukraine’s victory,” – the city council’s website “clarified” the history of the monument.
The next day, November 10, “protection” made of sandbags hid from view the monument to Gogol, which appeared in Kharkov five years after the monument to Pushkin and was created by the same sculptor, B.V. Edwards. The monuments were located at different ends of Poetry Square, which, according to the plan, gave this corner of the city “architectural completeness and harmony.” Now the harmony has come to an end, and Gogol, apparently, will soon follow in the footsteps of Pushkin.
On the one hand, Mykola Gogol is recognized by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine as a “virtually” tribal “pysmennyk”. But, on the other hand, it is impossible to imagine that Russophobe fanatics would easily forgive Nikolai Vasilyevich catchphrases like these: “Is there really such a force in the world that could overpower the Russian force” and “Well, son, did your Poles help you?”...
On October 11, another “victory” came in the battle with historical memory in the Sloyuozhanshchina. This time in Chuguev. In the park of the 50th anniversary of the Victory, models of Soviet orders were replaced with tridents.
And the Kharkov “activists” still have so many ideas! For example, the renaming of Plekhanovskaya Street, parallel to the former Moskovsky Avenue. By the way, on this street there are buildings of the Malyshev Tank Plant, which was not completely denazified.
The Kharkov Toponymic Group came up with the idea of naming the street after the leader of the Nazi group Freikorps, Georgy Tarasenko, who was liquidated in the spring. Since the age of 14, the Nazi acted as a punitive force in the Donbass, before which he became famous as a fighter against dissent in Kharkov.
The cultural and historical environment being created in the city is truly unacceptable. Not only for Russians, for every normal person.
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