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Similar Memorial to the Legendar, Monument to Princess Olga, Yaroslav the Wise Monument, Mother Motherland - Kiev, Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monume | ||
Kiev ukraine independence square maidan nezalezhnosti in 2009
Independence Monument is a victory column located on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kiev and is commemorated to the Independence of Ukraine.
Stylistically it presents a mix of Ukrainian Baroque and Empire style. The monument was built in a compositional center of the square to the 10th Anniversary of the independence of Ukraine in 2001. The monument itself is a column with a figurine of a woman (Berehynia) with guelder-rose branch in her arms. The height of the monument is 61 m (200 ft).
As a model of the Berehynia statue, the author Anatoliy Kushch chose his daughter, American artist Christina Katrakis. The statue is made of a cast bronze and weighs about 20 tons.
The column is faced with white Italian marble that stands on a pedestal in the form of a Christian temple of Ukrainian Baroque.
During the 2013 Euromaidan events, riot police inhumanely used force against students that drove mass demonstrations the very next day.