Rumyantsev Obelisk

The Rumyantsev Obelisk stands on Vasilyevsky Island in St Petersburg, in the middle of a small park bearing the same commander's name.

The idea for the monument was conceived under Catherine II: in 1795 the empress decided to commemorate the victories of the Russian army in the war against the Ottoman Empire of 1787–1791. It fell to her son to see the matter through: in 1798 Paul I issued a decree allocating more than 82,000 roubles for the construction of a monument honouring the achievements of Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky, who had died shortly before, entrusting the management of the funds to the court marshal Count Tiesenhausen.

The design was created by the Italian-born architect Vincenzo Brenna. The monument was initially erected on the Field of Mars, not far from the Moika, but when it was decided to place the monument to Suvorov on the same site, the obelisk was moved to the opposite end of the same field, closer to the Marble Palace. In 1809 it was restored by the architect Andrei Voronikhin, who replaced the missing bronze fittings.

The monument found its final location in 1818. When the area was redesigned to make way for a new Suvorov Square, the monument had to be moved once again, and the choice fell on Vasilyevsky Island — on a former parade ground opposite the Academy of Arts, next to the Menshikov Palace. The decision carried a personal significance: the palace had housed the First Cadet Corps, where Rumyantsev himself had once studied. The architect Carlo Rossi organised the monument's relocation to its new site. Almost half a century later, in 1866–1867, a garden was laid out around the obelisk and named after the field marshal.

In composition, the monument is a granite column of Serdobol stone, crowned with a bronze sphere bearing the figure of an eagle with outstretched wings. The column is visually set apart from the pedestal by four corner stones cut with diamond-shaped facets; the pedestal itself is built of pinkish marble from the Karelian deposit at Tivdia combined with grey stone from Ruskeala, and stands on a three-stepped base. The faces of the pedestal carry white-stone bas-reliefs (of marble brought from Italy) on the theme of military trophies, along with bronze garlands. The total height of the structure exceeds 21 metres. A bronze plaque bears a brief inscription in the old orthography — "Rumyantsov's Victories" — a direct dedication of the monument.