A monument to Heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812 in Polotsk

This majestic monument in honor of the victory over Napoleon, which is located on Polotsk Liberty Square, is one of 10 structures of the second class created in accordance with the project of Antonio Adamini, the Russian architect with Swiss roots. The monument was designed in the Byzantine style and set on the city territory in 1850.

Distinctive compositional features of the memorial

This monument-chapel has a form of an octahedral truncated pyramid which is situated on a cylindrical pedestal. It is crowned with an onion dome ending with a gold-plated Orthodox cross. On the perimeter of the middle part of the structure there are 8 pairs of columns with imperial double-headed eagles.  

On the plate you can read interesting information of a historical nature. So, for example, it says that after the battle of October 5-6 (18-19) the city was captured on October 7 (20), 1812. It is mentioned at the bottom that General P. H. Wittgenstein defeated the 2nd and the 6th army corps of the French army, commanded by marshals Oudinot and Saint-Cyr. It is worth noting that the brilliant Russian commander did it twice: in August and October during the attack of Napoleon's troops on Polotsk.

On the opposite side of the Monument to Heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812 there is information about the capture of 4500 soldiers and 3 enemy guns.

What else is this construction interesting for?

Its height is 23.77 meters, and the weight is 110 tones. Here is also an icon of revered Saint Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, whose Remembrance Day is on October 7 (20), when the final assault on Polotsk took place. Its draft was prepared by the artist A.V.Notbek. As the icon had not been painted by the day of consecrating the monument, an icon of Christ the Savior was temporarily placed instead of it.  Earlier it had been kept in the Church under Polotsk military school.  

On April 9, 1852 the image was delivered from St. Petersburg and set on the construction.

How was the Monument to Heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812 supplemented and restored?

In the autumn of 1912 on the 100thanniversary of the victory over Napoleon Polotsk was visited by representatives of the regiments which had taken part in the battle of this city. Each sub-unit gave memorial plaques which were attached to the surface of the construction. In addition, here appeared an openwork fence of iron.

First they thought about necessity of restoration of the construction in the 80-ies of the last century. The first funds for the restoration of the monument were received in the summer of 1988. Soon the local City Executive Committee made a proper decision on this issue. In the winter of 1993 the Republican scientific methodical center of restoration made up an estimate for these works, its total value was 230 thousand rubles. They failed to complete its repair because of the instability of the economic situation on the territory of the former Soviet countries after the collapse of the USSR.

An appropriate decision about its restoration was made after the address of V. S. Tochilo, a Chairman of the Polotsk City Executive Committee, to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia with a petition about the restoration of the memorial. In June 2006 on Liberty Square of the city appeared a symbolic stone which became an evidence of the imminent start of the long-awaited works. The final project of the construction had been prepared by August 2009, and its ceremonial mounting took place 4 months later - on October 27, 2009.

Archbishop Theodosius consecrated the monument in 2010 and since then the restored monument has again become one of the most important architectural attractions of Polotsk, as well as an obligatory object of a number of excursions.