VLADIVOSTOK: A HISTORIC WALKING TOUR 

CENTRAL SQUARE

      The central square is officially known as the Square of the Fighters for Soviet Power in the Far East.  It began to take shape in the 1960s when the decision was made to construct a square over the slope facing the Bay of the Golden Horn; because of its hilly terrain, Vladivostok did not at that time have a spacious meeting-ground.

     Vladivostok’s central square was built in two stories with a chess club on the ground floor.  Reflecting the far-reaching changes that Russia is currently experiencing, this space is now allotted to a large covered shopping mall.  In the center of the square stands the monument to The Fighters for Soviet Power in the Far East.  The construction of this ensemble was entrusted to A. Teneta, an Honored Artist of the Russian Federation; it was unveiled in 1961.  Designed in the form of a classical triangle, the monument includes a multifigured composition at its base and vivid side figures; but the central focus is on a trumpeter.  This figure was chosen as a symbol of the new, Soviet, power because  a trumpeter is believed to have headed the column of the People's Revolutionary Army that liberated Primorye from interventionists

                                                                  DM, 1992

and years of Civil War (on October 25, 1922); Soviet power was then proclaimed in the whole region.  Facing the ocean--which is the tradition in seaports--the trumpeter holds a banner in his right hand and the instrument in his left.   The monument became a symbol of Vladivostok, and the trumpeter is often depicted on pins.

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