Millennium of Russia

Stand still for a moment and let your eyes adjust to the bronze. It is dark, almost green in places, and it catches the light differently on every surface. Above you, a great rounded form rises from a granite base. Around it, hundreds of faces look outward in every direction. Behind you rise the brick walls of the Novgorod Kremlin, and somewhere nearby the domes of Saint Sophia catch the sky.

You are standing beside the Millennium of Russia monument. It was unveiled in 1862 to mark one thousand years of Russian statehood. The date was chosen from the old chronicles, which place the arrival of a Varangian prince named Rurik in Novgorod in the year 862. The Varangians were Norse warriors and traders from Scandinavia. Historians still debate how much of that early story is fact and how much is later tradition. But for the nineteenth-century Russian Empire, Novgorod was where the nation began.

That is why the monument stands here, and not in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. Novgorod was one of the oldest cities of the Rus, a powerful trading republic with links across northern Europe. Its Kremlin, which locals call the Detinets, is the fortress you are standing inside right now. Placing the monument here sent a clear message. The empire wanted to show its deep roots, and Novgorod carried the oldest claim.

Now look at the overall shape. Many visitors see a giant bell, and that is no accident. The bell was a symbol of the old Novgorod republic, which once called its citizens to assembly with one. At the same time, the form also suggests an orb — the round golden symbol that a Russian ruler held at a coronation. So the shape carries two meanings at once: the free voice of the city and the power of the crown.

The design was led by Mikhail Mikeshin, a young artist who won the competition for the project. He worked with a team of sculptors, including Ivan Schroeder, and with the architect Viktor Hartmann. Mikeshin was a painter by training, not a sculptor. Perhaps that explains why the monument feels so much like a picture you read in layers, from the top down. Let us read it that way now.

At the very top, an angel holds a cross. In front of the angel kneels a woman. She represents Russia herself. The scene shows the nation under the protection of the Orthodox faith. From the ground, these figures can be hard to see clearly against a bright sky. Step back a few paces, and the top tier comes into focus.

The middle tier is where the drama happens. Here, six sculptural groups surround the orb. Each one marks a turning point in the national story. You will find Rurik, the founder figure from the chronicles. You will find Prince Vladimir, who brought Christianity to the Rus in the late tenth century. There is Dmitry Donskoy, who led the victory over a Mongol-Tatar army in the fourteenth century. And there is Peter the Great, the tsar who turned Russia toward Europe.

The other two groups show Ivan the Third, who united many Russian lands around Moscow, and the founding of the Romanov dynasty in the seventeenth century, after a long period of chaos known as the Time of Troubles. Walk slowly around the monument. Each group faces a different direction, so the story unfolds as you move. It is a sculpture you cannot understand from one spot.

Now lower your eyes to the band of figures just above the granite base. This is the high-relief frieze, and it holds more than one hundred people. They are arranged into four groups: enlighteners and church figures, statesmen, military leaders, and writers and artists. Look for Princess Olga and Yaroslav the Wise among the early rulers. Look for Catherine the Great among the statesmen. Among the soldiers, you will find Suvorov and Kutuzov.

The cultural group may be the most enjoyable to explore. Here are writers and composers the whole world knows. Look for Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol. Look for Glinka, the composer often called the father of Russian classical music. Look for the scientist Lomonosov too. Many visitors spend more time at this lower band than anywhere else. The faces are close enough to study, and each one carries its own expression.

Here is something most visitors miss. One very famous tsar is not here at all. Ivan the Fourth, known as Ivan the Terrible, does not appear anywhere on the monument. In 1570, his forces carried out a brutal massacre in Novgorod. Many people in the city died. When the monument was planned, the decision to leave him out was seen as a quiet judgement. In this city, of all places, he was not to be honoured.

The second surprise comes from the twentieth century. During the Second World War, German forces occupied Novgorod. They took the monument apart, planning to ship the bronze away. Before they could finish, the Red Army retook the city in early 1944. Soviet troops found the pieces still here. The monument was restored and put back together within the same year. So the bronze you see today has been dismantled once and carefully rebuilt.

Take a moment now to look past the monument itself. Turn toward Saint Sophia Cathedral, with its white walls and helmet-shaped domes. Notice the old brick of the Kremlin walls, and the trees that soften the open space around you. On a quiet day, you may hear church bells, footsteps on paving stones, and children pointing at the faces in the bronze. This square has seen centuries of ceremony, but it also works as an ordinary place to sit and rest.

Before you walk on, choose one face from the lower frieze. Look at it closely, then look up at the great bell-shaped form above it. One person, and then the whole story around them. That is how this monument wants to be seen. As you leave the Kremlin, you may notice the same names on street signs and in shop windows across the city. The bronze story continues out there, in everyday life.