Before the war, the sculpture was located in front of the entrance to one of the noble estates, then it was considered lost.
In Kaliningrad - a sensational find. About a week ago, Kaliningrad photographer Svetlana Konovalova, while circling the Pravdinsky district, on the ruins of one of the estates, discovered a large fragment of the statue of the Roman goddess of earth and fertility Ceres that disappeared after the war. Previously, Svetlana saw the sculpture only in pre-war photographs. She stood in front of the entrance to the manor house.
- You will not believe, but passing along a slightly noticeable alley, I saw some kind of stone sticking out from the ground, - wrote Konovalova on her Facebook page. - I decided to dig a little. It turns out that this is part of the statue of Ceres, its middle part. I had to tinker a little. And after all, it lies almost where it stood. A leg protrudes from under the tunic. Part of the statue is not very large, but it did not work to move it. Apparently the ground has not yet warmed up, frost.
The sculpture was found in an abandoned park.
It is known that Ceres (in Greek mythology, Demeter corresponds to her) was portrayed as a beautiful matron with fruits in her hands. The installation of her sculptures on the territory of manor houses and parks was popular with European agricultural producers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to Svetlana, who found out the exact location of the sculpture from archival photographs, the rest of the fragments may be somewhere nearby.
- The sculpture was in front of the house, right in the center of a large flower bed. A good view of it opened from the veranda of the estate, - says Konovalova.
Before the war, the sculpture stood in front of the entrance to the master's estate.
For now, we will not reveal the location of the sculpture, as the question of its delivery to one of the museums in Kaliningrad is being decided. It is only known that the estate on the territory of which it was located was first mentioned in 1607. In January 1945, the Panzer Division of the Red Army took it almost without a fight. There was almost no destruction, only the hotel was damaged. Nevertheless, in the following decades, the manor house with a gable roof, built in the late classical style, like other buildings, was destroyed. In 1991, only a dilapidated stable, a transformer box and two massive barns without gates, as well as the manager's house, remained from the estate. In 1998, one of the two barns was demolished into bricks. By 2001, the second barn had also disappeared, after which the stable was also dismantled. Now only an overgrown park reminds of the estate.
Promotional video:
IVAN MARKOV