City chooses best sketch for monument of Aleksey Balabanov. Pictured.
The winner of the competition to design a monument for the late film director Alexei Balabanov has been announced. Meyram Baimukhahov's submission, featuring Balabanov sitting on a tram, has been selected by our correspondent site.RU.
Initially, 30 entries were submitted for the contest, 10 of which advanced to the second round. Several artists proposed multiple variations, resulting in a total of 58 submissions.
Baimukhahov's work received the number 35.
"There is a certain philosophy at play here, but I want something that feels more interactive, rather than a traditional monument. I'd like people to be able to climb up to Balabanov and sit next to him," commented Igor Pushkarev, Director of the Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg.
Tatiana Savina, Deputy Governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast, expressed concerns that the monument could attract unwanted attention, necessitating the need for crowd control inside the tram.
Deputy Head of Yekaterinburg, Rustam Galyamov, praised entry number 31, which depicts Balabanov standing on one leg over a precipice.
"Numbers 31 and 35 are a bold move. The tram idea is bold, but there's limited space at the film studio for it. There's an idea to create two monuments, with number 31 at the film studio and 35 in a park near the 22nd Party Congress meetings," Galyamov asserted.
Several employees of Sverdlovsk Film Studio praised entry number 8.
"It makes sense to place number 35 at the Palace of Youth. The school where he studied is nearby, and it's part of a touristic route dedicated to Balabanov," Yekaterinburg Mayor Alexei Orlov suggested.
The monument may be constructed as early as May 18, 2026, according to Orlov's remarks, with the exact location to be finalized in consultation with Balabanov's family.
In December, when the jury initially attempted to select the 10 best entries from 30 submissions, they were unable to reach a consensus. The deadline for receiving submissions was later extended to April.
Friends of the director had criticized the initial designs for their somber tone, stating, "The overall impression is melancholic. There's not much worth choosing from. The image portrayed is solely that of a bum on some ruins. But he was an angel because he was a messenger," Vyacheslav Butusov, a musician, stated at the time.
Text: Pelageya Smyshlayeva, Kirill Smolenkov
News about the chosen design for the late film director Alexei Balabanov's monument has sparked a discussion on the topic of entertainment and celebrities. While some, like Deputy Head of Yekaterinburg Rustam Galyamov, praised the bold depiction of Balabanov standing on one leg over a precipice (entry number 31), others were impressed by Meyram Baimukhahov's interactive design featuring Balabanov sitting on a tram (entry number 35). The debate continues as to where the monument should be placed, with suggestions ranging from the film studio to a park, or even the Palace of Youth.
