A monument to Alexander Pushkin has been erected near the exit from the Palace Garden to the Mikhail Yaroslavich Embankment in Tver, and the old pavement was restored in front of it. This monument is one of the most famous monuments to the great Russian poet. It was installed in 1974.
Alexander Pushkin was born in the Estate of Zakharovo, Moscow region, and then lived in St. Petersburg. He often traveled from one city to another. His biographers estimated that about 30 times Pushkin passed through Tver and 4 times came directly to Tver. Here he met with friends and acquaintances, among whom were Alexander Bakunin, Ivan Lazhechnikov, Alexander Shishkov and others.
Pushkin studied with Alexander Bakunin at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. He had a beautiful sister, Ekaterina Bakunina, who often visited her brother. She met Pushkin at the Lyceum ball. According to the memoirs of friends, Ekaterina became Pushkin`s first love, and he dedicated several poems to her. Whether this feeling was mutual, biographers do not know. Perhaps this was only the first youthful passion of the poet, which was reflected in his work.
In 1836, Pushkin came to Tver to shoot a duel with an official and an aspiring writer Vladimir Sologub. Pushkin was then 37 years old, and Sologub was 23 years old. Pushkin considered that Sologub spoke badly about his wife Natalia and challenged him to a duel in absentia.
Pushkin arrived in Tver in the spring of 1836, but Sologub was in the village at that time. Pushkin stayed in Tver for 1 day and left for Moscow. After that, Sologub went to the capital to the house of Count Nashchokin, where Pushkin was staying. He arrived early in the morning, woke everyone up and was ready to shoot immediately As a result, Count Nashchokin managed to reconcile them, and the duel did not take place.
The monument to Pushkin in Tver looks very beautiful on the Mikhail Yaroslavich Embankment, next to the Old-Volzhsky Bridge. The bronze sculpture of the poet with a height of 3.5 meters is installed on a pedestal lined with granite slabs. The poet in a fashionable frock coat and top hat leans on the grating of the embankment. This composition is called "White Nights". To create the monument, the sculptor Oleg Komov used drawings by Pushkin, which he made in the margins of the manuscript of the poem Eugene Onegin.
