Love it or loathe it, Kyiv’s Rodina Mat statute, built in Soviet times to rival New York’s Statue of Liberty, promises to be an enduring symbol of Ukraine’s communist past. Or will it?
Oleg Silin, a well-known Ukrainian architect who was involved in designing the gigantic statue, which was built in celebration of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II, says there is a risk that the 102-meter-high monument may collapse.
Silin told the Post that the hill under Rodina Mat is composed of a type of soil that can resist very strong pressure – as long as it is not soaked in water.
‘But there are ground waters in that area, and the direction of their flow can’t be predicted,’ Silin said.
However, officials in the World War II museum located inside the statue’s huge concrete foundation dismissed Silin’s fears as baseless. They said Silin was not the first to warn that Rodina Mat might collapse.
‘I’ve never met Silin, and all these journalists who have written [about Rodina Mat’s possible collapse] are simply not professional, because none of them has come here to simply ask if it is true,’ said museum director Ivan Kolanchuk.
‘This is only a guess, but I think he [Silin] is making all this noise because he didn’t get a sufficient reward for his participation in the project,’ Kolanchuk said.
He said a special commission of experts examined maintenance of the statue in October, and found that the structure was standing firm and upright as before and would not be in danger of falling in the next 130 years.
Rodina Mat, which is almost three times heavier and nine meters higher than the Statue of Liberty, took two years to build and was completed in 1981.
The hollow statue of a woman, holding a sword and a shield, gazes east as if welcoming the Soviet Army, which liberated Kyiv in 1943 after more than two years of occupation by the Nazis.
The museum complex stretches more than six meters underground, containing the two floors of the World War II museum and a basement with water supply and air conditioning equipment.
‘Just think, would we all work here, go down to the basement every day if there were a possibility that it might fall, if there was any risk?’ Kolanchuk said.
Hundreds of thousands of tourists have visited the museum since when Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev opened it 18 years ago.
‘The monument will always symbolize the victory of life over death, sense over madness, kindness over evil,’ Brezhnev said at the opening ceremony.
But Rodina Mat also symbolized a key element of the Soviet regime: its craving to demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism by producing something bigger than its equivalent in the West.
‘A lot of such things were made in the Soviet times, and this gigantomania is manifested in Rodina Mat as well,’ Silin said.
But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Rodina Mat’s identification with the Soviet regime made it an unpopular symbol to some, and still more began to complain about its proximity to the Pecherska Lavra, an ancient monastery complex whose largest cathedral was destroyed by the Soviets in the 1930’s.
Some proposed that the Soviet-era hammer-and-sickle insignia on its shield be replaced by the trident, the symbol of independent Ukraine.
Several newspapers even alleged that Rodina Mat was cursed, and was spilling negative energy over the capital.
‘At some point, I even wanted to take [the newspapers] to court, but then I decided just to ignore them,’. Kolunchuk said.
But Rodina Mat’s biggest shortcoming, many complain, is that it disfigures the landscape of the Dnipro hills, which elsewhere are dotted with golden-domed churches and cathedrals, and in the summer are covered with greenery.
‘The construction of the monument was also meant to humiliate the Pecherska Lavra,’ Silin said. ‘But there are certain rules for fitting a new building into the landscape, and in the case of Rodina Mat these rules were broken.’
Silin said Rodina Mat was originally planned to be even higher, but he managed to persuade project directors to decrease its height so as to minimize the risk of a collapse. As a result, Rodina Mat holds a sword rather shorter than the original plans envisaged.
‘Luckily, they made the statue 30 meters lower,’ Silin said.
Despite his warning, Silin said the collapse of the statue could be prevented – if the danger of its fall is recognized.
‘At the beginning of the 21st century, technology has developed enough to allow a lot of measures to be taken to prevent the collapse of the statue,’ Silin said.
