Russia never used to erect monuments to Ivan the Terrible, but now it has two

Russia never used to erect monuments to Ivan the Terrible, but now it has two. The second one just went up in Moscow at the new “Alley of Rulers” sculpture park outside a military history museum. Designed by Vasily Selivanov, the Ivan Grozny statue shares the park with 33 busts created by sculptor Zurab Tsereteli.

The statue first appeared in late April in the town of Alexandrov, in the Vladimir region, before it was almost immediately dismantled and handed over to the Russian Military Historical Society, which moved it to Moscow.

State officials in Alexandrov initially planned to create the monument with government funds, but locals raised the money for the statue and had it built themselves, when the town postponed its plans.

The first monument ever built in Ivan the Terrible’s honor appeared last October in Oryol. In neither Soviet nor Tsarist times did Russia ever erect a statue to Ivan the Terrible.