Hero on a Horse

For 33 long years the citizens of Ismail, Bessarabian city on the lower Danube, have shared a suppressed desire. In 1912 they ordered a statue of Catherine the Great's famed General Suvorov, Russian hero who liberated the city from the Turks. In nearby Odessa a suitable equestrian statue of the general was made, and was ready for shipment when World War I broke out. When that war was finished, Ismail was no longer part of the Russian Empire, and the new Red Russia was not interested in the memory of Tsarist heroes.

The bronze General, lying on his side, bided his time in an Odessa cellar. Last week, with Ismail again Russian and Russia again interested in its heroes of the past, the General was hoisted out of his hideout, dusted off and readied for his 120-mile journey to Ismail's public square.

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