In the city of Polyarny, Murmansk region, on the territory of St. Nicholas Church, a bust of the Russian Emperor Alexander III was solemnly opened. Its installation is essentially an act of historical justice: from 1899 to the 1930s, the local port was called Aleksandrovsk. It was founded at the request of the prominent statesman of Russia Sergei Witte and named after the father of the then reigning emperor. In 1926-1939, the port in the Elizavetinskaya harbor was transformed into a rural settlement, renamed Polyarnoye, and then received the status of a city. The erection of a monument to the autocrat, whose name the settlement originally bore, should remind the modern inhabitants of Polyarny about their native history.
On the day of the opening of the bust in St. Nicholas Church, a solemn service of the hierarchical rank was held, which was performed by Bishop Tarasiy of Severomorsk and Umbsk. Then the rite of consecration of the monument was performed. “I sincerely thank you for your kind cooperation in the establishment of a memorial bust to Emperor Alexander IIll, after whom our city was named, as a gift to him, our city, in the year of celebrating the 120th anniversary of its foundation,” he said, addressing the audience. rector of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Archpriest Sergiy Mishchenko.
Funds for the production and installation of the monument - about three hundred thousand rubles - were collected by local parishioners. The finished bust was delivered from Simferopol to Polyarny in February, where an additional fundraiser for the manufacture of a granite pedestal took place - it cost another 150 thousand rubles.
