The monument to Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky is located in the middle of a picturesque alley on Komsomolskaya Street. It is a rather modest sculpture in the form of a bust of the famous Soviet Chekist. The project was designed by architect V.M. Volchek and realized by sculptor Z.I. Azgur in 1947.
Felix Dzerzhinsky was born in Belarus into a family of Polish nobles, at the ancestral estate of Dzerzhinovo, which is now located in the Volozhin District of Minsk Region. His life path was relatively short, but vivid and eventful.
He spent almost all of his youth, right up until 1917, in prisons and exile, where he ended up on charges of anti-government activities. Later, Dzerzhinsky became famous as an ardent fighter against the counterrevolution and one of the organizers of the “Red Terror.” He died in 1926 at the age of 48 and was buried in Moscow by the Kremlin Wall.
The life and work of F.E. Dzerzhinsky still provoke heated debate: some consider him a hero, others a criminal. But he left his mark on history, albeit a controversial one. One of the monuments that can be seen in Minsk serves as proof of this.
