The history of this monument is interesting and dramatic The figure of the emperor was first placed here in honor of the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway It was unveiled in 1908 The monument was designed by Robert Bach, also the architect of the Pushkin monument in Tsarskoye Selo and the monument to Glinka in Moscow The first statue did not last long In 1920 it was dismantled by the Soviet government Only in 1964 was the monument — rather, its foundation — reconstructed by V Shmatkov as a giant pyramidal spire For just under four decades, Irkutsk residents agreed to meet «at the spire » Finally, in the new century and millennium, Alexander III
returned to the Irkutsk embankment thanks to funding from the Eastern Siberia Railroad
The architects studied archived documents pertain ing to the original statue and the new monument was made by a group of St Petersburg sculptures under the direction of Albert Charkm By the way the bronze figure of the emperor is five meters tall and weights 6 metric tons The monument was rededicated on October 4 2003.
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