Lucky us, We got one of Tsereteli's best!

This morning, my mom sent me a forward from Snopes.com about a 911 monument in New Jersey given to the US by Russia in 2006. Like so many other people, I do not remember reading about this event at the time. I was able to find some news stories that date to between 2004 and 2007. One of them focuses on a potential controversy about too many names on the base of the monument. I found that link through a page that contains many other stories about the 5th commemoration of the 9/11 bombing. It is possible that the New Jersey monument got lost in a sea of memorials large and small. I found a whole website dedicated to various 911 memorials on Long Island. It would seem that we are unable to agree on THE best way to remember the victims and comfort their families while never forgetting this vicious attack on our nation. Or perhaps we are simply exercising our freedoms as Americans to do our memorializing in the way that we each deem fit and proper.

This particular 911 memorial was created by Russian artist, Zurab Tsereteli, who has left his mark on the world in many countries besides his native land. Tsereteli is a prolific designer and painter who works in many different media. This statue was dedicated on September 11, 2006 with then Russian President Vladimer Putin and former president Bill Clinton in attendance. 

In any event, I was delighted to see pictures of this beautiful monument in Bayonne, NJ. The imagery of a rent in the two towers, seen as one, with a huge teardrop suspended in it evokes both grief and hope. I would love to see it in person. Here is another clear picture. It stands on the New York harbor across from the Statue of Liberty. The bronze-clad statue is 100 feet tall which makes it a few feet taller than the lady at 93 feet and puts it among Tsereteli's larger works.

As I researched this subject, I was fascinated by other works of Tsereteli, namely this rather hideous monument to Peter the Great. At 98 feet, it is close to the same size of the 911 monument and must be a constant eyesore to the residents of Moscow - especially since Peter dissed Moscow to build his capital at St. Petersburg at a huge cost of money and lives. As I looked at some more works, I became quite estatic that we got the one that we did. 

This whole exercise reminds me once again that the volume of information on a particular subject sometimes has little bearing on its importance.