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Kursk Memorial Design Chosen

By Irina Titova

Staff Writer

Sergey Grachev / The St. Petersburg Times The winning design for the monument to the sailors who died when the Kursk nuclear submarine sank in August 2000.

A design for a monument to be erected in St. Petersburg's Serafimovskoye Cemetery to the 118 sailors who died when the Russian submarine Kursk sank on Aug. 12, 2000 was selected Friday from a group of 11 submissions. But the selection was not everyone's first choice.

The submission by architects Nikita Sokolov and Gennady Peichev comprises a black granite cube - symbolizing the ocean depths - with its top shaped to imitate the restless surface of the Barents Sea, where the submarine sank, and a stormy petrel - a kind of sea bird - flying above the waves as a symbol of tragedy.

The front of the monument will bear the date of the tragedy and the coordinates where the boat sank due to the explosion of a torpedo on board. The names of the crew members are to be engraved on the back of the monument.

The jury of eight consisted of representatives from the St. Petersburg Architects' Union, the St. Petersburg Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade Committee - which is responsible for erecting the monument - and the Kursk Memorial Foundation.

According to Zarifa Ivkina, an assistant at the Architect's Union, the jury members from the Kursk Memorial Foundation, who were expressing the views of the families of the crew members, preferred another submission. "However, from a professional point of view, the specialists involved disagreed with the choice," she said.

While some of the family members present agreed that, while they had preferred another of the contestants, the ultimate choice had caused no bitterness. Vladimir Mityayev, whose son Alexei was an officer on the Kursk and who was a member of the jury, said he was not offended by the different opinion of the majority of the jury.

"The most important thing is to preserve the memory of the Kursk sailors," Mityaev said, adding that the Kursk relatives also had divergent opinions on the best monument.

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