Odesa guidebook: Must-see places #29 Monument to an Orange (Monument to a Bribe)

When you walk along Zhvanetsky Boulevard, you can see a very unusual monument - a monument to an orange or, as the locals also call it, a monument to a bribe. Why a bribe? To do this, you need to go a little deeper into history and remember the events that contributed to the construction of such an extraordinary monument.

On May 27, 1794, Empress Catherine II issued a decree, which decided to build a commercial seaport in Odesa. But this decree was not carried out during the life of the Empress. Over time, Paul I, who received the throne after Catherine II, cancelled the decree issued by her and completely stopped financing the construction of the port.

The main activity of the city - trade was suspended, Odesa fell into a very difficult situation, being practically on the verge of bankruptcy. It seemed that it was already impossible to find a way out of this situation, but the locals, as usual, are ours!

Odesa merchants, after learning the decision of the emperor, send him a couple of carts filled with oranges, under the escort of the Fenogarian Greek Guard. Pavel First was very fond of these southern fruits, especially since he received them at the end of winter. As a result, on March 1 of the same year, funding was restored. Odesa received 250 thousand rubles in gold to continue the construction of the port and the development of the city.

The monument to the orange is located at the end of Preobrazhenskaya Street, the corner of Zhvanetsky Boulevard. Its original location was the intersection of Lanzheronovskaya and Pushkinskaya streets, but the architects of the city expressed the opinion that in this part of Odesa there are already many cultural and architectural monuments.

The authors of the monument to the orange, Alexander Tokarev and Vladimir Glazyrin, supported the decision to move it, especially since the monument was not yet completely ready at that time and it needed to be reconstructed. Therefore, since 2007, a monument to orange can be seen on Zhvanetsky Boulevard.

The monument to the orange is quite bizarre and unusual. You can see a bronze orange with an elongated slice on a huge pedestal. In place of the seized slice, Emperor Pavel First stands unshakable.

Three horses are harnessed to the orange saviour. Above it are the most famous buildings of Odesa - the colonnade of the Vorontsov Palace, the Opera House and the Transfiguration Cathedral in miniature. In order to better understand the meaning of this sculptural composition, a granite slab with a text was installed below, one half of it in Russian, and the other half in Ukrainian.

The sculptural composition is placed in the centre of a round platform with a diameter of 12.5 meters, paved with granite blocks (paving stones). Cast-iron posts with chains are installed around the perimeter. Initially, the composition also included two granite milestones 90 cm high, on which the number of miles from Odesa to St. Petersburg was marked, but when the monument was moved from Lanzheronovskaya Street to Zhvanetsky Boulevard, they were lost.

The monument was cast in Kyiv. It took about a ton of bronze. The cost of the sculpture was about 20,000 US dollars, construction work cost 160,000 hryvnias(About 6 thousand dollars).

Where can you see the sculpture?

The sculpture is located in Odesa on Zhvanetsky Boulevard.
The exact GPS coordinates are 46.491520, 30.733569
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