Statue of Liberty

Before the revolution, Ekaterinburg’s main piazza was known as Cathedral Square and symbolised the twin pillars of Imperial Russia – Autocracy and Orthodoxy. The square was the site of the Baroque Cathedral of the Epiphany (1771–74) and a statue of Tsar Alexander II, sculpted by Mikhail Popov and installed in 1906.

The statue of the Tsar-Liberator was pulled down immediately after the revolution in 1917 and replaced by a version of the Statue of Liberty in May 1918. The statue was created by an unknown sculptor and represented the ridiculously small figure of a woman wearing a crown, standing on a globe and holding a burning torch.

The sign to the left of the statue reads: “Sleep, battle eagles”. This was a wooden pyramid in honour of members of the Red Army killed in battle against the forces of Ataman Alexander Dutov, who rebelled against the new Bolshevik government in November 1917. They were buried next to the empty pedestal on 31 January 1918.

The Statue of Liberty was dismantled after Ekaterinburg was captured on 25 July 1918 by the Czech Legion and the White Army (too late to save the family of Tsar Nicholas II, who were murdered in the nearby Ipatiev House on 17 July). The empty pedestal was later occupied by an enormous statue of a naked worker.