The Bronze Horseman

The name of the most famous monument in St. Petersburg was not invented by empress Catherine the Great or the sculptor Étienne Maurice Falconet. The name "Bronze Horseman" was got stuck to it thanks to the poem of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The statue of the first emperor of Russia, Peter the Great, is one of the major symbols of St. Petersburg.

The monument is located in the historical center of St. Petersburg on Senate Square. Peter I on a rearing horse peers into the future from the banks of the Neva. The casting of 9 metric tons of bronze into the sculpture of Peter I took 12 years. The pedestal weights 1500 tons and is known as the Thunder stone for being a barely chiselled ancient boulder of 1.5-1.6 billion years old which was dragged for almost 8 km to be put on its current place.

The empress Catherine II dedicated the monument to 100 years since Peter’s accession to the throne with the following inscription in both Latin and Russian: Catherine the Second to Peter the First, 1782.