Kagul Obelisk, Military monument in Catherine Park, Russia

The Kagul Obelisk is a marble obelisk with a bronze plaque bearing a commemorative inscription, standing in the Catherine Park of Tsarskoye Selo. Designed by Antonio Rinaldi, it was made at the Office of the Construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral and installed in December 1771. Its total height with the pedestal is 5 sazhens.

The obelisk commemorates the Russian victory at the Kagul River in Moldavia on 21 July 1770, when Pyotr Rumyantsev's 17,000 troops routed Grand Vizier Halil Bey's force of about 150,000. Antonio Rinaldi designed it, and it was made at the Isaac's Cathedral building office and installed in December 1771, its total height with pedestal reaching 5 sazhens.

The obelisk is also called Rumyantsevsky after Count Pyotr Rumyantsev, who commanded the 17,000-strong Russian army at Kagul. Catherine II had a copy made in St Petersburg and gave it to Count Pyotr Sheremetev in 1785, during the tenth-anniversary celebrations of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca; it was set up at his Kuskovo estate near Moscow in 1786.

The obelisk stands in the middle of the Big (English) Meadow, a lawn laid out in 1771 that runs over 200 metres up the hillside south of the Catherine Palace, with paths along its sides. In 1830 a guide noted that walking up to the obelisk was forbidden so as not to trample the turf. Since 1856 the adjoining part of the meadow has been enclosed as the Private Garden.

The pedestal of the obelisk carries inscribed text detailing specific information about the historical moment the monument preserves. These carved words turn the structure into more than a symbol, making it a written record set in stone.