On July 5, a monument to one of its famous employees, whose name is forever inscribed in the history of the national aircraft industry, was unveiled on the campus of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”. It is about the extraordinary professor of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Oleksandr Sergiyovych Kudashev, one of the first domestic aircraft designers.
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The opening of this monument was the completion of the memorial sculptural and architectural composition dedicated to this outstanding personality. We remind you that the first stage of the composition - a massive stone block with a memorial plaque - was unveiled in November 2017. The monument behind building No. 4 on the edge of Sosnovyi Square was erected not by chance: in 1910, this is the site of a wooden shed-hangar where Oleksandr Kudashev, the developer of the first Russian Empire aircraft to fly, built his Kudashev-1 (later there were Kudashev-2, Kudashev-3, and Kudashev-4).
The designer tested his airplane himself. “On May 23, 1910, or June 5, according to the new style, Oleksandr Kudashev made his first flight at the Syretsk Hippodrome, where the buildings of the Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Studio were later built. And this date is recorded as the birthday of the national aviation,” said Mykhailo Zgurovsky, the initiator of the composition, at the opening ceremony of the unveiling. The information about why and in whose honor the stone block with the figure of a slender man in the uniform of a KPI teacher was installed is provided on the aforementioned granite plaque with an image of an airplane and a brief explanatory text.
The figure of Oleksandr Kudashev was created and skillfully combined with the stone and the surrounding space by sculptor Oleksandr Kuzmin, the author of several other sculptural compositions and memorial plaques that decorated Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and, at the same time, immortalized the memory of prominent scientists who worked at the university or graduated from it at different times. “The man was an extraordinary person, so I wanted the monument to be extraordinary as well. That is why it uses certain symbols of aircraft construction and, in fact, Kudashev's life: his drawings, a flight helmet of those times, an aviation jacket, gloves,” he drew the audience's attention to the attributes that really complement and complete the entire composition.
The construction of such a complex would not have been possible if not for the financial assistance of a patron, a 1989 KPI graduate and well-known businessman Petro Bahriy. “When I was invited to participate in this project, I gladly agreed. I am grateful to Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute for keeping the memory of their teachers and glorious predecessors alive. It is important to look not only to the future, which Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute also successfully does, but also to stick to your roots: it gives you strength, inspiration, and a desire to change the world for the better,” he emphasized.
The Chairman of the Academic Council of KPI, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Mykhailo Ilchenko told about the problems that had to be overcome when creating the monument. One of the main ones was that no portrait of Oleksandr Kudashev has been found today. Employees of the university museum spent a lot of time looking for it, but in vain (there are several photos of Oleksandr Kudashev on his plane or next to it, but they were taken from a far enough distance that it is difficult to see his face - editor's note). Therefore, the image of Oleksandr Kudashev on the monument is somewhat generalized. However, this does not detract from the artistic and historical value of this work.
Oleksandr Kuzmin told KP about the search for the best way to realize the idea and about his cooperation with representatives of the KPI. “We had to find the best embodiment of Kudashev's image. There were several sketches. In the end, we settled on the one you see here. We were still thinking whether to leave or remove the plaque with the inscription. We decided to leave it because it helps the viewer, because it contains information about this person and his affairs. And, of course, we left the stone block untouched, which is a natural form, which, in my opinion, is quite successfully connected into a single composition...”
Nevertheless, readers will be able to learn more about Oleksandr Kuzmin's work on sculptures and memorial plaques at KPI in an interview with him that will be published in one of the next issues of Kyiv Polytechnic.