Kneeling for a billion? The cost of the monument to Susanin threatens the budget of Kostroma

The restoration in Kostroma of the "primordial" monument to Ivan Susanin by the sculptor Demut-Malinovsky, where Susanin is kneeling, may cost not 80 million, but almost a billion rubles.

As the ex-mayor of Kostroma Irina Pereverzeva said in her video message to the residents of the city, the idea of restoring this monument was discussed at the collegium under the head of the city 14 years ago - in 2006. Having calculated the real cost of installing the monument, taking into account the mandatory transfer of infrastructure facilities, the authorities of the subsidized city “were horrified” and decided to abandon the idea, despite the blessing of the patriarch.

“At the planning meeting, my two deputies literally 'grappled'. One was in favor, and the other was categorically against. When we figured out how much money this would cost, we grabbed our heads”, - Irina Pereverzeva told Novye Izvestia.

According to her, Deputy Vladimir Beloglazov, who was in charge of the housing and communal services sector, who was presented with calculations of the cost of moving sidewalks, street lamps and stylized plafonds surrounding the future monument, without holding back his emotions, shouted: “250 million! Where can I get them for you? Are you all crazy? "

As Pereverzeva clarified, in order to simply "stick a monument in - you don't need a big mind".

“And what to do with everything that follows? Will the Kostroma residents be ready to pay for all this out of their own pockets?”, - she asked, adding that in order to erect a monument in the historical part of Kostroma, it is imperative to carry out archaeological research. For unforeseen expenses, taking into account the relocation of underground utilities that are not mapped, an additional 20% will need to be included in the project. And in order for the monument to be properly viewed from all sides, it is necessary to remove all the hanging wires, and at the same time the supports of the electric transport contact network.

Pereverzeva asked if Kostroma residents were ready to abandon trolleybuses so that the second monument to the national hero appeared in the city center - this time, knelt down.

Considering the amount of infrastructure reconstruction indicated by Pereverzeva in 2006 prices of 250 million rubles, plus 20% for unforeseen relocation of communications, the editorial board of Novye Izvestia decided to find out how much it could cost taxpayers now.

Having loaded the data into an online calculator that takes into account the inflation rate as of October 2020, we found out that the cost of infrastructure work will no longer be 300, but about 900 million rubles. Almost a billion! And this is in a subsidized city, whose budget for 2020 amounted to only 7 billion rubles.

As previously reported, the head of the Department of Philosophy, Culturology and Social Communications of Kostroma State University Aleksey Zyablikov addressed the head of the city with the initiative “to recreate a historical monument”.

The mayor's office said that when the head of Kostroma, Yuri Zhurin, brought up the question of installing the kneeling Susanin for discussion by the Public Council on the Historical and Cultural Image of Kostroma, "the members of the council did not raise any objections".

However, many residents of Kostroma had questions about the advisability of installing a second Susanin on the main square of the city. In the context of a budget deficit and a coronavirus pandemic, many said that it would be wiser to spend funds not on a monument, but on priority and more necessary things, for example, equipping Kostroma hospitals with medical equipment and scarce medicines.