Monument to Peter I

The statue of the king, made in bronze, was solemnly unveiled in Arkhangelsk in 1914. Being one of the replicas of the famous sculpture created by the project of Antokolsky M.M., the monument is known primarily for its image on the 500-ruble bill.

Peter the Great appears in the officer’s uniform of the Preobrazhensky regiment, emphatically overseeing the fighting of the Poltava battle from a granite five-meter base. During the years of Soviet power, the sculpture, like many other monuments to the great Russian tsars, suffered "for nothing." Instead of a majestic statue, an obelisk was erected for the victims of the intervention, which still occupies this place in Petrovsky Park. The statue of the emperor, meanwhile, lay ownerlessly on the embankment of the city and only thirteen years later was placed in the local history museum.

In 1948, the sculpture again took pride of place near the Cathedral pier just north of its original location. The bronze image of Peter the Great enjoys great honor among the citizens, whose history of the city is inextricably linked with the activities of the reforming tsar.