Dimitri Shostakovich

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City’s First Shostakovich Statue Unveiled by Son

A statue of Dmitry Shostakovich, thought to be the first to be erected in his hometown, was unveiled by the composer’s son Maxim on Friday near the Grand Canyon shopping mall in the north of St. Petersburg.

“It’s a difficult job to please the relatives of great people but this [has happened in this] case,” conductor Maxim Shostakovich told ITAR TASS at the gala ceremony.

“The monument has pleased my soul,” he said. The composer’s grandchildren were also in attendance.

Mussa Ekzekov, whose idea it was to build the city’s first major monument to one of its most famous sons, told ITAR TASS he would like it to become “a center of gravity for the city’s residents.”

Music by the composer will be piped quietly through speakers in the small landscaped park near the statue from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Ekzekov, who is the general director of property developer Solomon, which manages the nearby Grand Canyon mall, told ITAR TASS that he hopes that live music concerts will be given in the park in future.

The two-meter tall bronze monument, on the corner of Ulitsa Shostakovicha and Prospekt Engelsa between Prospekt Prosveshcheniya metro station and Grand Canyon, was revealed to the public on Friday — the 103rd anniversary of the composer’s birth.

The statue, which was sculpted by Konstantin Garapach, depicts the composer seated in contemplation surrounded by sheet music.

“You can feel at once it shows [my] father listening to music and thinking about his native city, homeland and countrymen,” Maxim Shostakovich said.

One of the 20th century’s greatest composers, Shostakovich lived through the siege of Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known, during World War II. It was during the 900-day siege that he wrote the morale-boosting “Leningrad Symphony” in honor of the city.