The Monument to Bulat Okudzhava was installed at the corner of Arbat and Plotnikov lane (Moscow) in 2022. The monument was created by sculptor Georgy Frangulyan together with architects Igor Popov and Valentin Proshlyakov.
On June 19, 1997, a week after Okudzhava’s death, the President of the country issued a decree to perpetuate his memory. The opening of the monument was timed to immediately coincide with two dates in Okudzhava’s life – Victory Day, for which he fought for three years on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, and his birthday: on May 9, 2002, he would have turned 78 years old.
The creators of the composition set themselves the goal of recreating “a piece of the Arbat courtyard.” The composition includes two bronze semi-arches forming a doorway, two benches, a figure of Bulat Okudzhava about 2.5 meters high, a bronze shadow extending into the courtyard, and a living tree.
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter of Georgian-Armenian ancestry. He was one of the founders of the Soviet genre called “author song” or “guitar song”, and the author of about 200 songs, set to his own poetry. His songs are a mixture of Russian poetic and folksong traditions and the French chansonnier style represented by such contemporaries of Okudzhava as Georges Brassens.
Though his songs were never overtly political (in contrast to those of some of his fellow Soviet bards), the freshness and independence of Okudzhava’s artistic voice presented a subtle challenge to Soviet cultural authorities, who were thus hesitant for many years to give him official recognition.
Nearest metro: Smolenskaya metro station (Filyovskaya line), Arbatskaya (Filyovskaya Line), Arbatskaya (Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line), Pushkinskaya
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