Russia's only statue to its last tsar stands forlornly in a barren field on the northeastern edge of Moscow, gazing at a dilapidated power station with sad dignity, its back to a block of Brezhnev-era apartment blocks.
The 10-meter-high bronze likeness of Nicholas II, originally created to commemorate last year's 100th anniversary of the tsar's coronation, was relegated to its lonely suburban existence last July, after plans to erect it in the city center were sabotaged, monarchist groups contend, by resurgent forces of Bolshevism.
But now, with the possible impending canonization of Nicholas II by the Russian Orthodox Church, the 80th anniversary of his murder next year, and the planned burial of the tsar and his family in the imperial vault in St. Petersburg, Monarchist groups are gearing up for another try at bringing the tsar to the city center.
"There should, of course, be a statue of Nicholas II in the center," said Sergei Sapozhnikov, chief herald of the Assembly of Nobles, who offered the courtyard of the organization's headquarters on Malaya Znamenka Ulitsa as a site. "It will be a partial redemption for the mistakes of the past," he said.
Sapozhnikov contends that a mix of "political atavism" and "fear of a red electorate" prevented the statue's erection at a prestigious central site last year.
"But this coming year there will be a more pro-monarchist mood, as the anniversaries [of the last days of the Tsar] approach," he said.
No one in the city government's byzantine labyrinth of "Mos-" departments has been willing to stick his head above the parapet to claim responsibility for keeping the statue out of the center.
For example, a spokesman for Moskomarkhitectura, the city architecture committee theoretically responsible for such rulings, said somewhat sheepishly that the project "involved a host of practical and procedural difficulties" that had to be resolved "on many different levels."
Mosproyekt, the city's official building contractor, said the matter was settled by a special mayoral commission in conjunction with Moskomarkhitektura.
Mosgorstroi, which administers Moscow building projects, said statues come under the direct jurisdiction of the Mayor's Office. The Mayor's Office referred all inquiries to Moskomarkhitektura. And so on. "The fact is that the city couldn't or didn't find a place for the monument," said Nadezhda Ivanova, assistant to the statue's creator, Vyacheslav Klykov. "Many people can get involved in the decision making process."
Klykov himself could not be reached for comment this week at his studio in Kaluga, 200 kilometers southwest of Moscow, where he secludes himself for long periods while working on new sculptures.
Meanwhile, Nicholas II, clad in coronation robes and holding an orb and scepter, presides silently over a field belonging to the 18th-century Church of the Annunciation in the village of Taininskoye, just off Moscow's outer ring road.
Local vandals have taken some unfortunate interest in the statue, removing two of the gilded letters from the inscription on the pedestal, but other locals have grown fond of the tsar's likeness.
"I think it's right that he's here, facing away from the city," said Yevgenii Ryabov, 60, a forester and amateur historian who has lived in Taininskoye all his life. "This church was a staging post where tsars and tsarinas used to pray on their way to the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery [at Sergeyev Posad] on their coronation pilgrimage.
"Nicholas was not a worldly man, so it is right that he has his back to the secular world of Moscow, and is facing the spiritual world of the Lavra [major monastery]," he said, gesturing dramatically in the direction of the seat of Russian Orthodoxy, whose distant domes are permanently hidden behind the smoke billowing out of the power station chimneys.
As to the fate of the statue, Church of the Annunciation's warden believes it rests with an authority much higher than the minions downtown in City Hall.
"If God wills it, they will move him somewhere else," Warden Nikolai muttered. "If he doesn't, they won't".
The 10-meter-high bronze likeness of Nicholas II, originally created to commemorate last year's 100th anniversary of the tsar's coronation, was relegated to its lonely suburban existence last July, after plans to erect it in the city center were sabotaged, monarchist groups contend, by resurgent forces of Bolshevism.
But now, with the possible impending canonization of Nicholas II by the Russian Orthodox Church, the 80th anniversary of his murder next year, and the planned burial of the tsar and his family in the imperial vault in St. Petersburg, Monarchist groups are gearing up for another try at bringing the tsar to the city center.
"There should, of course, be a statue of Nicholas II in the center," said Sergei Sapozhnikov, chief herald of the Assembly of Nobles, who offered the courtyard of the organization's headquarters on Malaya Znamenka Ulitsa as a site. "It will be a partial redemption for the mistakes of the past," he said.
Sapozhnikov contends that a mix of "political atavism" and "fear of a red electorate" prevented the statue's erection at a prestigious central site last year.
"But this coming year there will be a more pro-monarchist mood, as the anniversaries [of the last days of the Tsar] approach," he said.
No one in the city government's byzantine labyrinth of "Mos-" departments has been willing to stick his head above the parapet to claim responsibility for keeping the statue out of the center.
For example, a spokesman for Moskomarkhitectura, the city architecture committee theoretically responsible for such rulings, said somewhat sheepishly that the project "involved a host of practical and procedural difficulties" that had to be resolved "on many different levels."
Mosproyekt, the city's official building contractor, said the matter was settled by a special mayoral commission in conjunction with Moskomarkhitektura.
Mosgorstroi, which administers Moscow building projects, said statues come under the direct jurisdiction of the Mayor's Office. The Mayor's Office referred all inquiries to Moskomarkhitektura. And so on. "The fact is that the city couldn't or didn't find a place for the monument," said Nadezhda Ivanova, assistant to the statue's creator, Vyacheslav Klykov. "Many people can get involved in the decision making process."
Klykov himself could not be reached for comment this week at his studio in Kaluga, 200 kilometers southwest of Moscow, where he secludes himself for long periods while working on new sculptures.
Meanwhile, Nicholas II, clad in coronation robes and holding an orb and scepter, presides silently over a field belonging to the 18th-century Church of the Annunciation in the village of Taininskoye, just off Moscow's outer ring road.
Local vandals have taken some unfortunate interest in the statue, removing two of the gilded letters from the inscription on the pedestal, but other locals have grown fond of the tsar's likeness.
"I think it's right that he's here, facing away from the city," said Yevgenii Ryabov, 60, a forester and amateur historian who has lived in Taininskoye all his life. "This church was a staging post where tsars and tsarinas used to pray on their way to the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery [at Sergeyev Posad] on their coronation pilgrimage.
"Nicholas was not a worldly man, so it is right that he has his back to the secular world of Moscow, and is facing the spiritual world of the Lavra [major monastery]," he said, gesturing dramatically in the direction of the seat of Russian Orthodoxy, whose distant domes are permanently hidden behind the smoke billowing out of the power station chimneys.
As to the fate of the statue, Church of the Annunciation's warden believes it rests with an authority much higher than the minions downtown in City Hall.
"If God wills it, they will move him somewhere else," Warden Nikolai muttered. "If he doesn't, they won't".
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