Question of the day: did Iosif Kobzon deserve a monument in the center of Moscow?

As you know, in the center of Moscow - in Oruzheiny Lane - it was decided to erect a monument to Iosif Kobzon, allocating about 50 million rubles from the budget for this.

In this regard, writer Lena Miro asks in her blog an important question:

“I alone do not understand here, what did Iosif do such a great thing for the country to receive such honors? Maybe he invented a cure for cancer? Maybe he carried hundreds of children from the shelling? Maybe at least what kind of rocket he designed or into space, at worst, heroically flew? No! Kobzon made a singing career along the party-Komsomol line. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, then of "Edinaya Rossiya" party ("United Russia") in the State Duma. He praised any power and was treated kindly by it for it.

He lived well. Did not overwork. A cunning opportunist, in my opinion. Why is necessary a monument to him? What for?!"

And indeed, no matter how you relate to Kobzon, talking in the midst of a pandemic and general economic decline about expensive monuments is, to put it mildly, strange. However, the Russian authorities do not care about these oddities. And nevertheless, Miro asks his readers a question: “Do you support the installation of a monument to Iosif for budgetary money or not? Why?"

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There were many answers, and they can be roughly divided into two groups. In the first one, people wondered: there is nowhere to put money?

- When I see this, I always have a question: why do we collect for children with SMA with the whole world, and expensive trinkets are bought from the budget?

- If you arrange an honest vote, what do the people need more: a monument to Kobzon or, for example, repairs in a capital hospital? I think people will support the second option. Yes, there are admirers of his talent, well? Now all the singers who have fans, to erect monuments for the state bill? Kobzon sang, so you can name a music school in his honor, since you really want to.

- No! This is arrogance and disgrace! Let his fans fold. So it will be fair. As, for example, Arbenina threw themselves into the studio, which means that their audience needs it, since people voted with a ruble and built it. So the 'stars' need monuments, for example, I would have thrown myself on the monument to Hvorostovsky, but not Kobzon! Then it will be clear who is really dear to the people...

And in the second group, the good deeds of the singer were recalled:

- Kobzon twice entered the building of the musical "Nord-Ost" on Dubrovka, seized by terrorists and after negotiations brought a woman with her two children and one more child ... And he was very seriously involved in charity work.

- He was the first to rush to Beslan and offered himself to terrorists in exchange for children-hostages, while the authorities of the country and the republic hid in bunkers.

Fortunately, there were answers that reconcile both of these positions:

- Even for the fact that he brought several children out of "Nord-Ost" and mommy, honor and praise. For the fact that he negotiated face to face with the ghoul who was holding people hostage, respect him. The Komsomol sang his songs completely sincerely, because he was a product of his time. I believed in what I sang. On the part of sycophants and worse than him. Until his death, he helped one disabled girl from the provinces, regularly changed her expensive prosthesis. And in general he helped many. He sang well, he definitely had a singing talent, he never cut a false ear. It is disgusting for me that I was friends with the scum Ismailov, and even sang there at his jubilee. So I'm more against the monument than for. And really is not the time now. And the rest - they pecked...

From the editor:

And why not put a monument to Kobzon at the expense of his family, which, as you know, has a multimillion-dollar fortune?