Russian President Vladimir Putin has led ceremonies launching a monument to St Vladimir Duke of Kiev, who brought Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Kievan Rus in 988. Moscow City authorities put up the monument on Borovitskaya Square in front of the Kremlin’s southwester Borovistkaya Tower at the initiative of the Russian Military-Historical Soviety.
In a speech by the 16-meter-tall (52-feet-tall) bronze monument by the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov, Putin said the medieval ruler was a "farsighted politician" who "laid down a moral foundation that defines our lives to this day."
The President noted that the opening of the monument on the Day of People's Unity is symbolic and congratulated the Russians on this holiday.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill blessed the monument.
The speaker of the upper house of Russian parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, and Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, who is president of the Russian Military-Historical Society, also took part in the ceremony.
Earlier today, Vladimir Putin has laid flowers to the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky on the Red Square. The ceremony was attended by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill and the heads of other religions, including the chairman of the Russian Council of Muftis, Ravil Gainutdin, the Supreme Mufti, the Chairman of the Central Spiritual Russian Muslim Board, Talgat Tajuddin, the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, the head of the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Korniliy, the archbishop, Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow, Paolo Pezzi, and the head of the Traditional Buddhist Sangha of Russia, Pandito Hambo Lama XXIV - Damba Badmayevich Ayusheev.
The opening took place as Russia marks the Day of People's Unity, dedicated to the liberation of Moscow from foreign intervention in 1612, when Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky formed consolidated militia and saved the country from destruction.
