Bust of Karl Marx

Bust of Karl Marx

The exact date of the next event related to the main square of the city, remained unknown. By the end of 1918 a monument was first opened in Tambov. It was a bust of Karl Marx, set in the city center on the corner of Dolgaia and Dvorianskaia Streets, which had already been renamed. The bust was only a few meters away from the altar wall of the Utkinskaia church. No documented opinions of Tambov residents about the adequacy of this innovation are found. We can only assume that most citizens found this gift from the new government unusual. The bust of the founder of scientific communism, whose ideas were only known to a very limited number of people, was made of plaster and standing on a wooden pedestal.

This leads to the conclusion that such a memorial  has been proposed as a temporary one. And so it was, but a very short stay of this monument in Tambov was determined not by the people, who installed it. This was done in August of 1919, by the Cossacks of White Guard General Mamontov, who’s Cavalry Corps broke through the defense of the Southern Front of the Red Army in the area of Novohopersk and quickly found himself in Tambov.

There are memories of those heavy days (it was on August 18 - 20 1919) associated with the current city's main square. Mamontov troops so quickly and unexpectedly captured the city that Red Army did not have time or forgot to order their comrades, who were guarding the Soviet objects, to leave their posts. One of them, who carried the guard at the entrance of the Regional Party Committee, was brutally murdered by Cossacks on his post. Then they destroyed a bust of Karl Marx, chopping it with checkers. For more information about the events that took place in Tambov, you can read the book "The years went by ... The chronology of dates and events related to the city of Tambov in the period from 1918 to 1941".