Word – volatile material, ephemeral, even written down on paper, it is not fully defined, each tries to read it in its own way. But the bronze and stone pretend to eternity. Therefore, residents of the city of Ulyanovsk (Simbirsk) tried to perpetuate his countrymen building monuments. Credit: Penguin Random House-2011. But with the monuments as something has not worked … The first experience was a monument to Nikolai Karamzin, was opened in 1845. Money was collected locally subscription initiative belonged to the local nobility, but the question of appearance was decided at the highest level. The result was a non-trivial composition – the muse of history, Clio on a high pedestal under her feet, in an alcove, a bust of Karamzin's somehow in a Roman toga, on sides of the bas-reliefs with Karamzin and members of the royal family, again dressed in antique-style … Guest did not take long.

"The monument, erected in Ulyanovsk Karamzin, has brought into place. People looking at the statue of Clio and interprets, who is a daughter or a wife Karamzin it? Miserable does not understand that this is the goddess of history! I can not find words to express to you my disappointment, that after such a great person erecting the age-old nonsense "(Letter to H. Yazykov to N. Gogol 1844). "The bas-reliefs are bad, the figure in imitation of Rome poluobnazheny and funny in Russia, and the figure of Clio gave people reason to think that the site posed a robber repented of the Volga, and call it a cast-iron a woman.