Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People
The Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People (Ukrainian: Арка свободи українського народу, romanized: Arka svobody ukrainskoho narodu) is a monument in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. It was opened on 7 November 1982, amidst the celebration of the 1,500th Anniversary of Kyiv, to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the USSR and the "reunification of Ukraine with Russia in 1654" (the Pereiaslav Agreement as it was known in the Soviet Union).
Арка свободи українського народу | |
| 50°27′16″N 30°31′48″E | |
| Location | Pechersk Raion, Kyiv, Ukraine |
|---|---|
| Designer | Oleksandr Skoblikov (sculptor); Serhiy Myrhorodsky, Kostyantyn Sydorov, I.Ivanov (all - architects) |
| Type | complex of three sculptural elements of the monument |
| Material | metal, granite, bronze |
| Beginning date | 1978 |
| Completion date | 1982 |
| Opening date | Anniversary date of the October Revolution (7 November 1982) |
| Dismantled date | Partially: 26 April 2022 |
| Because of Ukrainian decommunization laws it shall not be rebuilt in its current form. | |
The sculpture under the arch, which depicted a Ukrainian worker and a Russian worker standing together, was dismantled in April 2022 amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 17 April 2024 the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy removed the official status of the monument and allowed its dismantling. The previous month an expert commission of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory had concluded that although the monument was renamed it did still "belong to the symbols of Russian imperial policy" and "therefore poses a threat to Ukraine's national security." The commission stated that it was "subject to complete dismantling."