Millennium of Russia, Bronze memorial in Veliky Novgorod, Russia
The Millennium of Russia is a bronze monument in the Novgorod Kremlin, erected in 1862. A granite pedestal 9 metres across carries a bell-shaped form crowned by an orb 4 metres wide, with an angel holding a cross above it; the whole reaches 15.7 metres. The monument holds 128 figures: 17 colossal ones in six groups around the orb and 109 historical figures on the lower frieze.
Emperor Alexander II unveiled the memorial in 1862 to mark one thousand years since the arrival of Rurik, the Viking prince credited with founding the first Russian dynasty. German forces attempted to dismantle and transport it during World War II, but the plan failed and Soviet restorers rebuilt it in 1944.
The lowest tier is a 26.5-metre frieze of 109 historical figures, among them the writers Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol, the painter Karl Brullov and the composer Glinka. Ivan the Terrible is deliberately absent, a reference to the 1570 Oprichnina sack of Novgorod. The orb above carries the inscription naming the reign of Alexander II and the year 1862.
The memorial stands openly in the courtyard of the Novgorod Kremlin and can be viewed from all sides. Daylight brings out the finer details of the bronze figures more clearly.
The monument holds 128 figures, not 129: 109 historical figures on the lower frieze, 17 colossal figures in six groups around the orb, and two at the top. Ivan the Terrible is absent, left out because of the 1570 Oprichnina sack of Novgorod.
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