Monument to Catherine II in Odessa. File photoMOSCOW, Aug 31 The Odessa regional administration notified the city council that the monuments to Catherine II and Alexander Suvorov do not have the status of a cultural heritage site, and no permits are required for their dismantling or transfer. In the letter, signed by the deputy head of the Odesa OVA Boris Voloshenkov, which was published in the Odessa division of the Ukrainian publication «Suspilne» (Public), states that the Russian Federation uses these monuments «to promote ideas about the belonging of the territory of the Odessa region to the Russian Federation».
UNESCO supported the inclusion of the center of Odessa in the World Heritage ListThe city administration recommends considering the dismantling of monuments. She also recalled the need to rename the streets and remove the Odessa monuments to Lenin and Gorky. Earlier, the Mayor of Odessa, Gennady Trukhanov, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, said that he was against the demolition of the monument to the Russian Empress Catherine II. In early August, Vladimir Zelensky appealed to the city council of Odessa with a request to consider the proposal to demolish the monument to Catherine II. This appeal was published in response to a petition for the demolition of the monument, as well as in response to a petition to replace the monument to the Empress with a monument to an American porn actor. Zelensky, in his response, also stated the need to work out the issue of «cleansing public space from objects and monuments relating to the Russian imperial and Soviet heritage» in the context of «protecting national interests.»
The mayor of Odessa wants to replace the demolished monuments with less controversial ones
