A monument to the occupier Alexander I appeared in Kazan

At the moment the monument is covered with plywood, it is located on the territory of KFU. The official opening is tentatively scheduled for November 17, the day of the 220th anniversary of the university.

In 1804, Alexander I founded the Imperial Kazan University.

Having come to power after the coup d’etat and the murder of his father Paul I (in which he also had a hand), he initially promised liberal and democratic reforms, he promised the abolition of serfdom. Everything turned out somewhat differently – and the new king, like all previous Moscow kings, took the path of autocracy and despotism, and his reign was called the time of “Arakcheev” – after the family name of one of the king’s generals, whose ideas he listened to most of all.

The entire country turned into a large army. Instead of freedom, serfs and free villagers were forced to endure constant drill like soldiers, and then die in endless imperialist wars. This led to regular riots and numerous uprisings.

“He was ready to agree,” wrote Prince Czartoryski, “that everyone could be free if they freely did what he wanted.”

It was this king who sent the Finno-Ugric nations of the All-Russian empire to conquer Finland. Russian historiography presents this as the “beginning of statehood” of Finland, but this statehood in the form of a principality was given to the Finns only for the purpose of deception, to attract them to their side. Later, such a “gift” turned out to be mass victims and the most brutal ethnocide. He used the Turkic nations under his rule to wage war against the Muslims of Turkey and Persia. It was he who dragged everyone into the great war with Napoleon, constantly participating in various military coalitions against France, although at first it did not threaten Russia in any way.

He told about the end of his reign that he wanted to while away his old age on the banks of the Rhine, that is, he did not even intend to live in the Russian state under the regime and standard of living that he himself had established.