The Union State will finance the restoration of the monument to the Heroes of the War of 1812 in Polotsk

July 12, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. The Union State has allocated more than 44 million Russian rubles for the restoration of the monument to the Heroes of the War of 1812 in Polotsk, the head of the Department of Social Policy and Information Support of the Standing Committee of the Union State (SS) Irina Narkevich told a BELTA correspondent. The decision to finance the reconstruction of the monument was made by the Standing Committee due to the fact that the war with Napoleon became a common tragedy and a common victory for the peoples of Belarus and Russia, the interlocutor noted. This project has already been developed. It is planned to start the restoration work in the near future, and the opening is planned for 2010-2011. The reconstruction of the monument is included in the Comprehensive Program for the Development of Polotsk for the period up to 2012. It is planned to install it in the same place where it originally stood. It is symbolic that not far from this place is the burial of Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of Polotsk from the Nazi invaders. The monument to the Heroes of 1812 was opened in Polotsk in 1850. The author of the project was architect Fixen. The monument was a pyramid crowned with a dome with a gilded cross, surrounded by 8 cast-iron columns with domes, on which gilded eagles sat. All this rested on a cylindrical pedestal. The height of the monument was 23.7 m, and the total weight reached 221 tons. In the 1930s, it was destroyed. The monument near Borodino met the same fate. Only the monument in Smolensk has survived to this day. -0-