The Sphinxes on the Malaya Nevka

There’re the Sphinxes sculptures on the Malaya Nevka embankment. They’re not only interesting themselves, but also they have the gripping story. They resemble a lot the Sphinxes on the Egyptian Bridge. This makes the historians think of them as of the first draft moldings, made in 1826 on Ch. Berd’s Factory by P. Sokolov’s models. The draft moldings were assumed defective, but fortunately they didn’t throw them away, but put in the storage by the factory. In 80 years they were bought by Galaktionov the merchant, who had a business in metal sales. In 1910 the Sphinxes were put in front of his house on Vereyskaya st., and after he moved into Mozhayskaya st., they were moved there, too. They’d been there until 1970s, and in December 1971 they were put on the Malaya Nevka embankment at the Kamennoostrovskiy bridge.

But on the new place the Sphinxes are not only reachable for everyone on their low basements, but also they are unattentioned. And as far as there’s not a single police post nearby, our people do their ‘best’. They try to crash everything that looks different from the surrounding devastation. That’s why they tried to damage the Sphinxes as much as possible. They sawed the diadem away, tried to break, tear off, or at least scratch and paint everything. By the beginning of the 21st century, the Sphinxes sculptures looked very miserable.

The Sphinxes were saved by the company ‘Mostotrest’. They were renovated and for some years were situated on Industrialny pr. On April, 17 2010 they got the ‘newly found culture monuments’ status and were returned to the previous place by the Kamennoostrovskiy bridge on the Malaya Nevka embankment. It seems like the vandals have been waiting for them for all these years. Just for the first 10 days after the monuments being placed, the specialists came there to renovate the sculptures twice. The monuments haven’t been placed higher, and they’re still unprotected there. They turn 185 this year, and the cast iron layer is only 4 mm thick. When I was taking pictures of them this year spring, they were freshly painted, but already had the new restoration marks. How many days will they withstand the constant vandals’ destroy threat? Shame on us, ladies and gentlemen..