As local officials explained, when one country invades and bombs another, killing its own people, their friendship is over. The 40-year-old statue, depicting a Ukrainian and a Russian worker on a plinth, was demolished by order of local authorities in Kyiv. It is one of the first steps in a plan to demolish some 60 monuments and rename dozens of streets associated with the Soviet Union, Russia, and Russian personalities, including writers Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Pushkin, as a result of the war between the two. Countries. Serhii Myrhorodskyi, 86, an architect from Kyiv, watched excitedly as the Russian worker’s head was accidentally cut off from his body and fell to the ground during removal. He did not seem to be bothered, despite the fact that he was the one who designed the monument, which was erected in 1982 as a gift from the Soviet regime to the Ukrainian government. “It’s right,” he told the Guardian. “There is no friendship with Russia and there will be no friendship for as long as Putin and his gang are in this world. After they die, maybe in 30 years, something changes. A woman cheers as the Soviet-era monument in Kyiv symbolizing the former friendship between Russia and Ukraine is dismantled. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian “The presence of the monument, which represents a friendship with Russia, is a sin. Removing it is the only right decision. And we could use that bronze from which the monument is made. “We could melt it down and sculpt a new monument dedicated to Ukraine, the motherland, which would symbolize the unity of all Ukrainian territories.” “As for my feelings,” he added, “I’m glad to see that people are happy that this whole thing is being removed.” As the monument began to fall, the crowd shouted: “Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes, glory to the nation of Ukraine.” The mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, who chaired the dismantling, said the removal of Russian symbols from the city was now under way. “You are not killing your brother. You are not raping your sister. You are not destroying your friend’s country. “That is why today we have dismantled this monument, which was once created as a sign of friendship between Ukraine and Russia.” Other cities in Ukraine have in recent days begun renaming streets associated with Russian figures or demolishing monuments associated with the Soviet Union. Memorial plaques for the Soviet “hero cities” that resisted the Nazis have been replaced by the names of Ukrainian cities under Russian occupation or attack. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian The city of Ternopil in western Ukraine has renamed a street dedicated to Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and removed a Soviet tank and aircraft. The aircraft is to be replaced by a monument to “Ukrainian heroes”. Fontanka, a village near Odessa, has decided to pave a street dedicated to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky on Boris Johnson Street after the United Kingdom promised to send a 100 100m arms package to Ukraine. And the mayor of Dnipro, Boris Filatov, said that the streets named after Russian cities would be re-dedicated to Ukrainian cities and symbols: Abkhazia Street became Irpin, while the street of the 30th Irkutsk Division is called Irkutsk. Officials in Kyiv are about to pass a law renaming 60 streets, which means that Russian writers and Ukrainians who wrote in Russian – or even assumed Russian identity – are among those who could be removed from public life in the city. A subway station named after Tolstoy is on the list. The entrance to the metro station Leon Tolstoy Square in the center of Kiev. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian “The war has changed everything and things have accelerated,” wrote Alina Mykhailova, one of the two lawmakers from the city of Kiev who submitted the law, on Facebook. “It simply came to our notice then [our] the colonial heritage must be destroyed. “ Mykhailova and her colleague Ksenia Semenova campaigned for the removal of the People’s Friendship monument that was dismantled on Tuesday. There were plans to remove the statue in accordance with Ukraine’s de-communistization laws passed in 2015, but at the time they were rejected by other members of the Kyiv city council, Mykhailova wrote. The Ukrainian language and Ukrainian national identity were suppressed by Tsarist Russia and its Soviet successor. Russian was considered the language of high culture and official business, and many Ukrainians, especially peasants who moved to the big cities after World War II, adopted Russian to distance themselves from their rural origins. Perhaps more controversially, the list of de-Russification includes Ukrainian-born writers such as Mikhail – or Mikhail, in Ukrainian – who was born in Ukraine, wrote about Kyiv, but had derogatory views on Ukrainian . His statue is located next to his former home on one of Kiev’s most famous streets, which is now the Bulgakov Museum and is popular with tourists. “Only idiots could do that because Leon Tolstoy is a world-famous writer, not just a Russian or a Ukrainian,” said Ihor Serhiivych, a resident of Kiev, inside the Leo Tolstoy Square subway station. “There are many [ethnic] “Russians living in Kyiv are probably doing more right now to protect Ukraine than those Western Ukrainians who see themselves as the elite,” said Serhiivych. He said there was a gap in understanding between those Ukrainians who lived for a significant period under Soviet and tsarist rule and those in western Ukraine who did not. “If it were a statue of Putin I would understand, but you have to distinguish between enemies and world-famous literature.” A Soviet monument to the chariot divisions that fought against Nazi Germany is adorned with a Ukrainian flag. Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Guardian Another person at the station, Valetyna Hryhoryvycha, said: “I think people need to think a little more. I do not see how they relate to what is happening now. It’s part of our history. ” Ivan Andreyev, who works near the Bulgakov Museum, said: “I am in favor of removing the monument of friendship because there can be no friendship between enemies. But I think it is false that they are planning to take down the Bulgakov monument. Which Russian or Ukrainian would vote for such a thing? “It’s just a story.” While Ukrainian authorities are working hard to dismantle Russian monuments in their country, Moscow is doing the opposite on the Ukrainian territories it has occupied, restoring statues and symbols of the Soviet era. Two weeks ago in the coastal town of Henichesk, in the Kherson region, which is occupied by Russian troops, a familiar figure returned to the main square. A statue of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, with his famous goat and mustache, was again on its pedestal, erected by Russian soldiers.
