Ten years ago, on November 10, 2012, the “Waiting” monument was unveiled in Murmansk. Almost immediately “Waiting” became one of the main attractions of Murmansk. The idea for the monument belongs to the Murmansk poet Viktor Timofeev. In 1984, in his poem “Sentimental Clock” appeared the lines:
The sea city is trained to wait hard,
He is reliable and patient.
He believes: the statue of the Waiter will rise,
Meeting ships from flights!
For almost 30 years, the authorities have been trying to realize the idea of building a monument. And only in the summer of 2011, the honorary citizens of Murmansk Boris Veler and Nikolai Gutskalov again raised the issue of installing the monument “The Waiting Woman”. The authorities supported the initiative and an organizing committee was established. The main work fell on the shoulders of the famous builder Boris Naumovich Veler. His idea was simple – to finance and build a monument at the expense of donations from the residents of Murmansk. During the year it was possible to collect more than 3.3 million rubles. Ordinary residents of Murmansk, managers of 232 enterprises in the city, responded to the call for help. The funds collected are sufficient for the competition and the construction of the monument.
Today, the poet Viktor Timofeev, who came up with the idea of a monument to a woman waiting for her loved ones from sea voyages, is no longer among the living. Boris Naumovich Veler, who managed to implement this idea, also died. The honored builder of Russia, the honorary citizen of Murmansk Mikhail Shamrov, who built the “Waiting”, is also gone. But it is from this monument that the time of the renewed Murmansk can be counted. After all, the improvement of the territory around the national monument gave rise to the creation and reconstruction of all other parks and squares in our city. Now there are more than 40 of them.
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