It was commissioned by Catherine the Great; a German Princess who married into the Romanov line. Basically, she apparently was anxious to somehow connect herself to Peter the Great to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Catherine gained her position in a palace coup and really had no legal claim to the throne, so she was desperate to represent herself as Peter's rightful heir. The inscription on the statue says: Catherine the Second to Peter the First, 1782.
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| trampling snake |
- it took 12 years to complete and is 45 feet (13m) tall
- Catherine never seemed to be satisfied with the face, until it was redone by an 18 year old student of the sculptor. She used his death mask, and several portraits to get it just right.
- the name "the Bronze Horseman" is from a famous Russian poem. It is actually made of 27 tons of copper and 4.5 tons of iron.
The pedestal is the enormous "Thunder Stone" - the largest stone ever moved by humans. The stone originally weighed about 1500 tons, but was carved down a bit during transportation to its current state. Peter the Great liked granite. The stone is a Rapakivi granite monolith boulder that was found in Lakhta (6km from the Gulf of Finland). The men had so much trouble moving the stone, they had to wait until winter so it could be dragged over the frozen ground. When it was time to transport it over the water, they had to construct a special barge. The moving was all done by humans. No machines or animals were used. It took 400 men about two years in total to move it. (Okay - nobody explained why they didn't use machines or animals, and I wasn't about to ask. Nevertheless, quite the achievement I'd say!)
- During the siege of Leningrad during WWII the statue was covered with sandbags and a wooden shelter so it would survive the bombings.
