Rostropovich monument erected in Moscow

A monument to cellist and human rights advocate Mstislav Rostropovich has been unveiled in Moscow to mark the great musician`s 85th anniversary. Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin attended the unveiling ceremony.

Putin recalled celebrating Rostropovich`s 80th birthday with him in the Kremlin in 2007, the year the musician passed away. "I`m proud that I knew Rostropovich," Putin said. "Such people, without a doubt, made up and make up the pride of our country."

Putin pledged to support efforts of the musician`s wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, to set up a Moscow-based Cultural Heritage Center after Rostropovich. “We will do our best to back this wonderful idea to create a Rostropovich Cultural Center,” he told the musician`s widow.

Azerbaijani ambassador Polad Bulbuloglu said “Baku was always proud to have given the world such a great musician and noble man”. The bronze and granite statue of Rostropovich with a cello in his hands is located at the intersection of Bryusov Pereulok and Yeliseyevsky Pereulok in central Moscow, near where Rostropovich lived with his wife, a famous opera singer.

Rostropovich was born in Baku on March 27, 1927, and studied at the Moscow Conservatory from 1943 to 1948. He became a professor of cello at the conservatory in 1956. A vocal supporter of artistic freedom and democratic values, Rostropovich emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1974 under intense pressure from authorities. Three years later, he became music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington.


/AzerTAc/