Moscow City Duma commission endorses monument to Yevgeny Primakov

MOSCOW, February 8. /TASS/. The commission for monumental art of the Moscow City Duma, the local legislature, on Thursday issued endorsement to the installation of a monument to the highly respected veteran of the Soviet and Russian political scene, Dr. Yevgeny Primakov, Russia’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in the 1990’s.

The Duma agreed to the placing of the monument on the downtown Smolenskaya Square, opposite the skyscraper where the Russian Foreign Ministry has its headquarters. The idea to put it up in front of the ministry’s main office came from Minister Sergey Lavrov in May 2016.

"Commission members passed the decision on the monument to Yevgeny Primakov unanimously," the chairman, Igor Voskresensky said.

Materials the commission prepared ahead of the Duma plenary session say the monument will be a gift to the city.

"Its author, People’s Artist Georgy Frangulian, has designed quite a number of monuments," said Sergey Polovinkin, the chief of the section for monument at Moscow City’s department for cultural heritage. "The location of the monument is absolutely correct. It will stand on the square in front of the Foreign Ministry."

Voskresensky recalled, however, that the commission could pass recommendations only and the right of the final say belonged to plenary sessions of the City Duma. 

"If both decisions are positive, the form the basis for an executive order by the city government," he said. "It will specify the deadline for completion of the works and name the officials in charge of the project."

Dr. Primakov, a politician whose career spanned almost six decades and embraced occupations from a Radio Moscow journalist to the head of the USSR central intelligence service to the Chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet to Russia’s Foreign Minister and Prime Minister died on June 26, 2015, at the age of 85.

He is highly credited in Russia for his staunch defense of the country’s foreign policy interests at pivotal historic moments, including the NATO-led campaign against the former Yugoslavia at the end of the 1990’s.