Bronze statue honoring mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin appears at St. Petersburg cemetery
A monument has been erected in honor of Yevgeny Prigozhin in St. Petersburg at Porokhovskoye Cemetery, where the late mercenary leader and one-time insurrectionist is buried. The installation features a granite obelisk bearing Prigozhin’s name, the dates of his birth and death, and the symbol of his private military company, Wagner Group. There’s also a life-size bronze statue of Prigozhin depicting him with a three-star insignia on his chest. (Russia and the Russian proxy states in Donetsk and Luhansk each awarded Prigozhin heroism medals.)
Sculptor Yaroslav Barkov told the news outlet Fontanka that Prigozhin’s mother “categorically didn’t want a military image” in the monument to her son and insisted on capturing him as a “civilian patriot” whose “soul and heart ached for Russia.” Journalists at Ostozhno, Novosti, have pointed out that the Prigozhin statue is missing the ring finger on his left hand, like Prigozhin in real life.
The memorial’s installation was roughly timed to coincide with Prigozhin’s birthday, June 1.
Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash on August 23, 2023, and was buried at Porokhovskoye Cemetery on August 29. Russian officials never publicly determined the cause of the crash, though President Putin said in October 2023 that investigators found hand-grenade fragments on the bodies of the victims.
In late June 2023, Prigozhin led Wagner Group on a brief but shocking mutiny against the Russian military after months of public disputes with the Defense Ministry over weapons and ammunition supply issues. Prigozhin’s subsequent death is widely believed to be an orchestrated response to the mutiny.