Peter and Paul Fortress. Part II. The Tsar and the hares

Continuing my story about the Peter and Paul Fortress, which I started in the previous post, I decided this time to do without architectural details and historical excursions (although there will still be a couple)), and talk about funny and maybe strange monuments that you can see in the fortress.

St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great, he also ordered to lay the Peter and Paul Fortress. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is a monument to him in the fortress. However, what may surprise you is the sculpture itself. She looks grotesque, if not ridiculous, and that's why. The author of this work is the Soviet (as well as American and Russian) world-renowned sculptor Mikhail Shemyakin. He had long been interested in Peter's personality and often painted him. And finally, he decided to make a sculpture of the Russian emperor. It should be noted that Peter the Great was a tall man - 2 meters 4 centimeters. Even now we will call such a person very tall, and to his contemporaries Peter probably seemed like a giant. At the same time, he was thin and wore clothes of modern international size S, and his foot was about 24.5 centimeters long (I have the same size))

Shemyakin first decided to make a life-size sculpture of the tsar, that is, 2 meters 4 centimeters, but he wanted Peter to sit on the throne. When he created a full-size model of the monument made of clay, it turned out that the two-meter sitting Peter somehow looked like a man of small stature. And then the sculptor found such a solution: he increased all the proportions of Peter's body, except for the head. So when you approach the monument to Peter and Paul in the Peter and Paul Fortress, you know: his face and head were exactly like that (Shemyakin sculpted them from the death mask of the emperor, who was 52 years old at the time of his death), but everything else - arms, legs, and so on - is one and a half times bigger. In other words: the head is history, and everything below is art)) However, I have another question. Why did Shemyakin portray Peter bald when he was dark-haired and curly? Perhaps to further enhance the grotesque impression of his work, who knows... That's all about the king, let's move on to the hares!))

The island on which the Peter and Paul Fortress is located is called Hare Island. Why hare — there were many hares here at the time of the founding of the city? But how would they get there, because the area of the island is only 22 hectares, and there were no bridges then) But the island already had a Finnish name (people lived in these places for a very long time, but by 1703 the island was uninhabited — floods happened too often here). So in Finnish the island was called Jänissaari, which means Hare (or Rabbit) Island in translation. Here is such a prosaic story! Completely uninteresting! It's much more exciting to listen to some legend or tale about the origin of the name! And there are such too.

One legend says that when Peter the Great first landed on the island, different animals came out to meet him, and the hare appeared first)) Another says that during a flash flood, a hare escaping from the water jumped on Tsar Peter's boot)) Of course, both are nonsense, but it allowed the hares to actually settle on the island. Of course, in the form of monuments (although I heard that for some time there was a rabbit mini-zoo in the fortress).

Some of the monuments have permanent "domiciles". For example, here is this imposing hare, who sits on a bench and kindly allows everyone to take a picture next to him.

Others are constantly moving around the fortress or are part of temporary expositions. That is why it is never possible to say how many hares are in the Peter and Paul Fortress right now. And at the entrance to the fortress, visitors are greeted by a hare, which has its own name - Arseny. The figure of a hare sitting on a pile in the middle of the Kronverk Strait appeared in 2003, when St. Petersburg celebrated its 300th anniversary. It is customary to throw a trifle on the pedestal of the monument: if the coin remains lying between the paws of a hare or on stilts, then the desire of the person who threw this coin will definitely come true)))

Thank you for stopping by and reading and watching it!

Your Irchen