Monuments to Ilf and Petrov characters in Kharkiv, Literary character sculptures in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
The Monuments to Ilf and Petrov Characters are a group of four bronze sculptures placed at separate spots across central Kharkiv, each depicting a figure from the satirical novels written by the duo in the late 1920s. Every sculpture shows its character in a recognizable pose, and a small inscription identifies who the figure is and which novel they come from.
Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov wrote their most famous novels, including "The Twelve Chairs" and "The Golden Calf", in the late 1920s, at a time when Kharkiv was still the capital of Soviet Ukraine. The bronze sculptures were added to the city later as a way to honor these literary figures tied to that period.
The characters portrayed in the sculptures come from novels that were read across the entire Soviet Union and are still widely known today. Locals often pause next to the figures, and it is common to see people posing for photos with them as if greeting old friends.
The four sculptures are spread across different central streets in Kharkiv and can be reached on foot without much difficulty. It helps to look up their individual locations before setting out, as they are not grouped together and each one stands on its own in a different part of the center.
One of the characters shown in the sculptures, Ostap Bender, was originally planned as a minor figure, but readers responded to him so strongly that the authors wrote a second novel just to bring him back. He is now considered one of the most beloved characters in Russian-language literature.
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