Monument to Alexander II (Moscow)

The Monument to Alexander II, officially called the Monument to Emperor Alexander II, the Liberator Tsar, is a memorial of Emperor Alexander II of Russia, situated in the immediate surroundings of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Completed in 2005 and partly inspired by a destroyed imperial monument from 1898, the statue itself was paid for by private donations, with the rest of the monument mainly financed by public funding. The site for the new monument was chosen in part because Alexander helped lay the foundation for the original Christ the Savior Cathedral (destroyed in 1931 by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin) and ruled during its construction.

Alexander II was born in 1818 and crowned on February 19, 1855; his rule was marked by the emancipation of the serfs, along with judicial and military reforms. The emperor was assassinated by terrorists, members of the revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya (translated: People's Will), who strove against .

The first monument to Alexander II stood above the Kremlin's Taynitsky Gardens and could easily be seen from the Zamoskvorechye district across the Moscow River. Work on the monument was begun under emperor Alexander III in 1893, and was completed five years later under emperor Nicholas II in 1898. The monument was the work of sculptor Alexander Opekushin, artist Peter Zhukovsky and architect Nicholas V. Sultanov.

The memorial consisted of a life-size bronze sculpture of Alexander II, set on a square pedestal with the words "To Emperor Alexander II by the love of the people" engraved on it. The sculpture was shaded by a canopy of polished dark red Carelian granite. The top of the canopy was made of specially fitted gilded bronze sheets with green enamel. On three sides - the exception being the side facing the Chudov Monastery, Ascension Convent and the Maly Nikolayevsky Palace (all of which were demolished for the enlargement of the Ivanovskaya Square in the 1930s), the monument was surrounded by a gallery with arches and openwork. Thirty-three mosaic portraits of Russia’s rulers from Prince Vladimir to emperor Nicholas II based on sketches by artist Peter Zhukovsky were placed in the gallery's vaults.

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