Dmytro Yarynych,
designer
“I’m glad the city got rid of the Lenin statue. However, they did it illegally, which is not good. Now numerous online architectural communities discuss the question – what should appear there? Some of them came up with really weird ideas – like to place Yoda (Star Wars character) there. We need to think critically about what should be there.”
Anna Savchenko,
activist
“I hope Ukraine finds new heroes who deserve to have a monument. We have lots of monuments in the country, so maybe it’s the right time to forget about the past and think about new real leaders of the nation. I’m sure that a Yulia Tymoshenko monument will be OK there, as she sacrificed herself for Ukraine’s better future.”
Vitaly Vasylevsky,
retired
“Why did they topple the statue? It’s part of our historical memory. We have known about Lenin since 1917. He was the one who freed people from slavery. The revolution is OK, but what we see is that nationalists want to be in power. So I hope no nationalistic ‘heroes’ will appear there. I think the right idea is to reconstruct the monument.”
Kostyantyn Krasovsky,
city council deputy
“The place has bad karma, so it’s not OK to put the statue of any national hero there. It will be better just to make a flower bed there and forget about Lenin. I’m sure we don’t need another monument in honor of executioners – like Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin or Hryhoriy Kotovsky. A Stepan Bandera monument shouldn’t be there as well. I think it’s worth a better place.”
Natalya Novak,
businesswoman
“We have to put the Lenin statue back in its place. That’s already part of our history, so the historical site should be preserved. I’m not sure we need something else there.”
