Monument to England's Sherlock Holmes and Watson. A monument to Sherlock Holmes has been unveiled on Baker Street in London.

Installed in 2007 in Moscow near the British Embassy in honor of the 120th anniversary of the publication of the first novel about the London detective by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Five Soviet films directed by Igor Maslennikov about Sherlock Holmes, filmed in 1979-1986, earned love and recognition not only in Russia, but also in England itself. In 2006, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain ordered that Vasily Livanov be awarded the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire for “the most authentic Holmes in world cinema.”

There are many monuments to Sherlock Holmes - in Switzerland, Japan, Scotland and, of course, on Baker Street in London. Plaques mark iconic places associated with Watson, such as in Afghanistan, where the fictional hero was shot in the arm. Memorial plaques hang in the Criterion bar in Piccadilly, in the chemistry laboratory of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where the heroes first met, in the vicinity of the Swiss Falls in Reichenbach. Since 1990, the address 221B finally appeared on Baker Street, which previously did not exist, which did not stop fans of the author of the deductive method from sending countless letters to him for more than a hundred years. Now a museum-apartment has been opened at this address, and the British government has declared the house an architectural monument.

In Russia, the famous couple of Conan Doyle's characters have always been the personification of an impeccable English style worthy of imitation. Their main features - a bright mind, elegant humor, self-irony, aristocracy, incorruptibility, ideal style - formed the standard image of a British gentleman. Historically, Russian-English friendship has developed best precisely because of mutual cultural interest, and the monument to Watson and Holmes at the British Embassy in Moscow is a symbol of dialogue between the two countries.

Anglo-Russian history

Mutual understanding between Russians and English over the centuries has been facilitated not only by literary images and cultural associations, but also by the similarity of views on some problems of world politics. Despite the fact that Russia and England more than once found themselves on opposite sides of the front, their military and state interests often coincided, and as a result, they repeatedly became political and economic allies. Since 1698, when Peter I visited the British Isles, a new era of diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries began. Following the trade agreement of 1736, England and Russia fought together in the Seven Years' War. Cooling under Catherine the Great, who was skeptical about the “American campaign” of George III, gave way to unity in the fight against the French Revolution (both England and Russia sent troops to France, unsuccessfully trying to restore the fallen monarchy), and then in the war against Napoleon. All this gave rise to a surge of Anglomania in Russian diplomatic circles and a passion for “everything English” in the high society of St. Petersburg.

Sherlock Holmes was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most popular movie character in the world. Over a hundred films have been made about him. The first was filmed by Arthur Marvin in 1900 in America. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Scotsman by birth, a ship's doctor and a versatile writer, created the epic about Sherlock Holmes from 1887 to 1926. He was upset by such close public attention to such a frivolous hero. The murder of Sherlock in a fight with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls caused a storm of indignation. According to legend, having received a letter from Queen Victoria, the writer succumbed to persuasion and revived the hero again.

But at the beginning of the 19th century, mutual sympathy was replaced by suspicion again. As soon as Alexander I returned from Europe, where he was celebrated as the conqueror of Napoleon, a Russophobic wave broke out in London due to the Russian suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830-31. The famous English call in the Crimean War “We will not give up Constantinople to the Russians!” speaks of a gigantic disagreement in the “Eastern Question,” which in those years became a stumbling block for the whole of Europe. It seemed that for the British, Russia was becoming a principle enemy. But only a few years passed, and the common enemy in the form of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the tour of the Russian Imperial Ballet in London, reconciled the two powers and dispelled the myth of a ruthless barbarian from the East threatening Europe. And the great tour of Nicholas II with his wife Alexandra Fedorovna across Europe in 1896 ended with a visit to Queen Victoria, Alexandra’s grandmother. As a result, according to the Anglo-Russian agreements of 1907, the powers became allies as part of the military-political bloc “Entente”, which united them during the First World War.

The aggression of the Hitlerite coalition forced the anti-communist Churchill to prefer Stalin to Hitler. And in 1945, the Potsdam Conference of the Big Three with Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill determined the fate of Europe for many years.

Russia and Britain are still the most important players and potential partners on the world stage. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, located opposite the British Embassy, are witnesses to this.

What to do at the monument

1. To make an important decision or find a way out of a difficult situation, you need to sit between two detectives and hold on to Watson’s notebook. You cannot touch Sherlock Holmes's smoking pipe - according to Moscow tradition, this promises nothing but trouble.

2. You can stroll along the embassy building and appreciate the intellectual minimalism of the architectural project created under the leadership of Richard Burton. The main idea of the monument is the proximity of English and Russian cultures, expressed, for example, in the combination of traditional stone and wood with environmental materials used by English designers in the process of creating interiors. The grand opening of the building on May 17, 2000 was attended by Princess Anne of Great Britain. About the new building, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: “It will become not only Britain’s window to Eastern Europe, but also Russia’s window to Britain.”

The British in Russia and about Russia

Until the 16th century, England knew nothing about the Moscow principality - instead of it, endless Tataria stretched out on the geographical maps of Europe. In August 1553, the only ship surviving from the English expedition, sent to the Arctic Ocean by King Edward VI, landed in St. Nicholas Bay, at the walls of the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery (later the city of Severodvinsk was founded in its place). This is how the British first set foot on the Russian coast. The captain of the ship Chancellor, delivered to Moscow, had with him a letter from Edward VI in several languages, in which the English monarch asks for permission to trade. Ivan IV found the proposal mutually beneficial and gave the go-ahead. The first English trading company, the Moscow Company, founded in 1555, had enormous privileges, which were curtailed only under Peter I. For the British, John granted chambers in Kitai-Gorod, next to the Kremlin, on the territory of which exclusively English laws were in effect.

The memoirs of the English pioneer Chancellor have been preserved, where he describes the luxury of dinners, a red brick castle with nine churches, where the tsar lives: “Moscow itself is a great city. It seems to me that it will be larger than London with a suburb, but at the same time it is wild and stands without any order... Such people, accustomed to a harsh life, are no longer anywhere under the sun, for they are not afraid of any cold.” In his notes, the Englishman also pays great attention to the size of the Russian army that amazed him.

Ivan the Terrible, having kept his guests for about a year, became imbued with sympathy for England and sent the expedition home with rich gifts and assurances of friendship. A few years later, he was inspired not only by the idea of an alliance with a powerful maritime state, but also by his love for Elizabeth I. In the process of sophisticated diplomatic negotiations related to matchmaking, England achieved a virtual trade monopoly with Russia at sea, and Elizabeth, having heard about polygamy and the waywardness of the Russian monarch, still escaped the move to the Kremlin.

Russian Anglomaniacs and Dandies

In the 19th century, Anglomania swept the capitals of Europe, including St. Petersburg and Moscow. From about the 1840s, it became not only fashionable to read Walter Scott and Dickens, but also to travel to the British Isles for no business purposes. Upon their return, Counts Pyotr Shuvalov, Mikhail Vorontsov, and the Golitsyn princes laid out regular English parks, decorated their estates with colonial British artifacts and gathered English important people in their salons. After the German Settlement in Moscow burned down in 1812, Anglican services were held in the house of the famous Anglophile Anna Golitsyna on Tverskaya. In those same years, noble youth, following Pushkin, loved to surprise secular society, imitating the English dandies Byron and Brummel, and some eccentrics, returning from fashionable London dressed in extravagant tailcoats and starched ties, turned away their boots and assumed a special English accent in their speech, pretending pretending to be foreigners, as M. Pylyaev mentions in his book about the Russian aristocracy, “Wonderful eccentrics and originals.”

The British in Moscow

The first Englishmen, merchants of the Moscow Company, began to settle in Moscow from the time of Ivan the Terrible. Under Alexei Mikhailovich, they were located in the German settlement. Since the era of Peter the Great, a British subject in the Russian Empire was no longer a rarity. An important event of the 19th century was the construction in Moscow of the Anglican Cathedral of St. Andrew (1878) in Voznesensky Lane. Already in our time, since the 1990s, Moscow for the British has again become one of the centers of attraction in eastern Europe. They are brought here by business, art and private life. At the beginning of the 10s of the 21st century, about 25,000 British people lived in Moscow, of which about 1,000 were students.

A country: Russia

City: Moscow

Nearest metro: Smolenskaya

Was passed: 2007

Sculptor: Andrey Orlov

Description

Located at the British Embassy, the monument to the literary heroes Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is as follows: Dr. Watson sits on a bench and holds his notebook in his hands, in which he writes down the details of a complicated and very interesting crime recently solved by Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock stands nearby with a pipe and is just telling the details that helped him solve the crime. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are surprisingly similar to everyone's favorite actors Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin. And this is not without reason.

History of creation

The idea of the monument and the choice of location are not accidental. After all, the British recognized actor Vasily Livanov as the best actor who played Sherlock Holmes. And where should we put it other than at the British Embassy on Smolenskaya Embankment?

Traditions

At the opening of the monument by Vasily Livanov, a legend was born. If you sit next to Dr. Watson on the bench and hold his notebook, then all problems and doubts will disappear. And if you hold onto Sherlock’s phone, your worries will increase.

How to get there

Get to the metro station Smolenskaya Filevskaya line. You get out and turn right onto 2nd Nikoloshchepovsky Lane. Follow it to 1st Smolensky Lane, turn right and go to Protochny Lane. There you turn left and go to Smolenskaya embankment. At the intersection of Protochny Lane and Smolenskaya Embankment there is the British Embassy, where there is a monument to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. 618 meters (7 minutes walk). Smolenskaya embankment, building 10.

Anglo-Russian history

Russia and Britain are still the most important players and potential partners on the world stage. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, located opposite the British Embassy, are witnesses to this.

What to do at the monument

The British in Russia and about Russia

Russian Anglomaniacs and Dandies

The British in Moscow

Societies of fans of Holmes' deductive method have spread throughout the world. This detective, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the most popular movie character in the world. In the last century, people even wrote letters to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, considering them to be real personalities.

Sherlock Holmes. Statue in Meiringen, Switzerland. Sculptor John Doubleday

In March 1990, a permanent museum-apartment of Sherlock Holmes opened in London at 221b Baker Street - at the address associated with the name of the great detective and detective. The house, built in 1815, was declared an architectural and historical monument by the British government.

There are many memorial signs around the world associated with the name of Holmes. Plaques adorn the Criterion bar in Piccadilly, where Watson first learned of Holmes; the chemistry laboratory of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where their first meeting took place; the vicinity of the Reichenbach Falls (Switzerland) and Maiwand (Afghanistan), where Watson received his mysterious wound.

in Edinburgh

And there are no less monuments to Sherlock Holmes. His first statue appeared in 1988 in Meiringen (Switzerland), the next one was opened in Karuizawa (Japan). In 1991, a bronze Holmes was installed in Picardy Place in Edinburgh (where Conan Doyle was born).

In London, a monument to the world's most famous detective and detective Sherlock Holmes was unveiled on September 24, 1999 at the Baker Street metro station. Holmes appeared thoughtfully looking into the distance, dressed for the rainy London weather - in a long raincoat, a hat with a small brim and with a pipe in his right hand. The author of the three-meter bronze monument was the famous English sculptor John Doubleday.

In April 2007, a monument to the great detective by Andrei Orlov was opened on Smolenskaya Embankment in Moscow, near the British Embassy. This was the first monument where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are depicted together. In the sculptures one can discern the faces of actors Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin, who at one time played the roles of these Conan Doyle heroes.

monument in Moscow

Sherlock Holmes is a literary character created by Arthur Conan Doyle. His works, dedicated to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the famous London private detective, are considered classics of the detective genre. The prototype of Holmes is considered to be Dr. Joseph Bell, Doyle's colleague, with whom he worked together at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.

Arthur Conan Doyle himself never reported the date of birth of Sherlock Holmes in his works. Presumably, the year of his birth is 1854. Fans of Conan Doyle's work have attempted to establish a more accurate date of birth for Sherlock Holmes. In particular, it was suggested that the date was January 6.

Holmes also mentions there that his grandmother was the sister of the French battle painter Horace Vernet (1789-1863). In a number of works, Sherlock Holmes' brother, Mycroft Holmes, who is seven years older than him and works in the Foreign Office, appears. Also in "The Norwood Contractor" there is a mention of a young doctor, Werner, a distant relative of Holmes, who bought Watson's doctoral practice in Kensington. There is no mention of Holmes' other relatives.

Key dates in the life of Sherlock Holmes are as follows:

In 1881, Holmes met Dr. John Watson (if we take Holmes's date of birth as 1854, then at that moment he is about 27 years old). He is apparently not rich, as he is looking for a partner to rent an apartment together. Then she and Watson moved to Baker Street, house 221-b, where they rented an apartment together from Mrs. Hudson. In the story "Gloria Scott" we learn something about Holmes' past, about what motivated him to become a detective: the father of Holmes' classmate admired his deductive abilities.
In 1888, Watson marries and moves out of his apartment on Baker Street. Holmes continues to rent an apartment from Mrs. Hudson alone.
The story "Holmes' Last Case" takes place in 1891. After a fight with Professor Moriarty, Holmes goes missing. Watson (and with him almost the entire English public) is confident in the death of Holmes.
Holmes was on the run from 1891 to 1894. Having survived a single combat on the edge of a waterfall, he crossed the Alpine mountains on foot and without money and reached Florence, from where he contacted his brother and received money from him. After this, Holmes went to Tibet, where he traveled for two years, visited Lhasa and spent several days with the Dalai Lama - apparently Holmes published his notes about this journey under the name of the Norwegian Sigerson. Then he traveled all over Persia, looked into Mecca (obviously using acting skills, since according to the laws of Islam, visiting Mecca and Medina by non-believers is excluded) and visited the caliph in Khartoum (about which he presented a report to the British Foreign Secretary). Returning to Europe, Holmes spent several months in the south of France, in Montpellier, where he was engaged in research on substances obtained from coal tar.
In 1894, Holmes unexpectedly showed up in London. After eliminating the remnants of the Moriarty criminal group, Holmes again settles on Baker Street. Dr. Watson moves there too.
In 1904, Holmes retired and left London for Sussex, where he was engaged in bee breeding.

The last described Holmes case dates back to 1914 (the story “His Farewell Bow”). Holmes here is about 60 years old (“He could have been about sixty years old”). Arthur Conan Doyle mentions the future fate of Sherlock Holmes several times. From the story “The Devil's Foot” it follows that Dr. Watson received a telegram from Holmes with a proposal to write about the “Cornish Horror” in 1917, therefore both friends survived the First World War safely, although they live separately.

Later in the story “The Man on All Fours,” Watson again indirectly hints at the date of publication of this case to the general public and about the fate of Holmes: Mr. Sherlock Holmes has always been of the opinion that I should publish the amazing facts connected with the case of Professor Presbury, in order to at least , in order to put an end once and for all to the dark rumors that stirred up the university twenty years ago and were still repeated in every possible way in London scientific circles. For one reason or another, however, I was long deprived of such an opportunity, and the true story of this curious incident remained buried at the bottom of the safe, along with many, many records of the adventures of my friend. And now we have finally received permission to make public the circumstances of this case, one of the very last that Holmes investigated before leaving practice... One Sunday evening, in early September 1903...

Watson says “we got it,” meaning, of course, himself and Holmes; If the actions of the hero of the story, Professor Presbury, rocked scientific circles in 1903, and this was “twenty years ago,” then it is not difficult to conclude that both Holmes and Watson are alive and well in 1923.

Sherlock Holmes method

Based on all the facts and evidence, a complete picture of the crime is built.
Based on the obtained picture of the crime, the only accused person corresponding to it is searched.

In terms of terminology, Holmes rather used the “inductive method” (a general judgment is made on the basis of particulars: cigarette butt-weapon-motive-personality, therefore Mr. X is a criminal). The deduction, in this case, would look like this: Mr. X is the only person with a dark past surrounded by the victim, therefore, it was he who committed the crime.

When forming an idea of the crime scene, Holmes uses strict logic, which allows him to reconstruct a single picture from scattered and individually insignificant details as if he had seen the incident with his own eyes.

The key points of the method are observation and expert knowledge in many practical and applied fields of science, often related to forensics. Here Holmes's specific approach to understanding the world is manifested, purely professional and pragmatic, seeming more than strange to people unfamiliar with Holmes' personality. Having the deepest knowledge in areas specific to forensic science, such as soil science or typography, Holmes does not know basic things. For example, Holmes does not know the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun, because this information is completely useless in his work.

In most cases, Holmes is faced with carefully planned and complexly executed crimes. At the same time, the range of crimes is quite wide - Holmes investigates murders, thefts, extortion, and sometimes he comes across situations that at first glance (or ultimately) do not have the elements of a crime at all (the incident with the king of Bohemia, the case of Mary Sutherland, the story of a man with split lip, Lord St. Simon's case)

Sherlock Holmes prefers to act alone, performing all investigative functions in one person. He is assisted by John Hamish Watson and the staff of Scotland Yard, but this is not of a fundamental nature. Holmes finds evidence and, as an expert, evaluates the involvement of those involved in the crime. Questions witnesses. In addition, Holmes often directly acts as a detective agent, searching for evidence and persons involved, and also participates in the arrest. Holmes is no stranger to various tricks - he uses makeup, wigs, and changes his voice. In some cases, he has to resort to complete transformation, which requires the art of an actor.

In some cases, a group of London street boys work for Holmes. Holmes mainly uses them as spies to assist him in solving cases.

Interesting Facts

The founder of this deductive-detective genre is, contrary to popular belief, not Conan Doyle, but Edgar Allan Poe with his story “Murder in the Rue Morgue.” At the same time, Holmes himself spoke very contemptuously about the deductive abilities of Auguste Dupin, the main character of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (the story “A Study in Scarlet”).

At the time the Sherlock Holmes stories were written, the house with the address 221b Baker Street did not exist. When the house appeared, a flood of letters fell to this address. One of the rooms in this building is considered the room of the great detective. The company located at this address even had a position for an employee to process letters to Sherlock Holmes. Subsequently, the address 221b Baker Street was officially assigned to the house in which the Sherlock Holmes Museum was located (despite the fact that this had to break the numbering order of the houses on the street).

Conan Doyle considered his stories about Sherlock Holmes frivolous, so he decided to “kill him” - a common technique of writers. After the publication of the story “Holmes's Last Case,” a heap of angry letters rained down on the writer. There is an unconfirmed legend about a letter from Queen Victoria to Conan Doyle that the death of Sherlock Holmes was just a cunning move by the detective. And the writer had to “revive” the character.

The five Soviet films about Sherlock Holmes (1979-1986), in which the main roles were played by Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin, are recognized as one of the best film productions even by the British, and since February 23, 2006, we can talk about the state level of this recognition - on the website The British Embassy in Russia published news with the headline “Vasily Livanov - Commander of the Order of the British Empire.”

S.Holmes Museum in London

In March 1990, a permanent museum-apartment of Sherlock Holmes opened in London at 221b Baker Street - at the address associated with the name of the great detective and detective. The house, built in 1815, was declared an architectural and historical monument by the British government.

Cm.

There are many memorial signs around the world associated with the name of Holmes. Plaques adorn the Criterion bar in Piccadilly, where Watson first learned of Holmes; the chemistry laboratory at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where their first meeting took place; the vicinity of the Reichenbach Falls (Switzerland) and Maiwand (Afghanistan), where Watson received his mysterious wound.

There are no less monuments to Holmes. His first statue appeared on September 10, 1988 in Meiringen (Switzerland), its author is sculptor John Doubleday.

Holmes' apartment museum was opened in the building of the old English church of Meiringen - a complete copy of the one at 221 B Baker Street in London. And at the same time, the adjacent street was named Baker Street. In 1987, a statue of the detective was unveiled.

The entire “corner” near the church and statue is covered with enlarged old clippings from the Strand magazine, which published stories about Sherlock with magnificent illustrations by Sidney Page (1860-1908), who is recognized as the best illustrator of the Holmes and Watson series. Bronze Holmes rests on a piece of rock, having prudently made room for a tourist with a camera. In fact, he indulges in reflection before the last battle with Moriarty (all the details of which are engraved on special memorial plaques).

The next statue of the famous detective was unveiled on October 9, 1988 in Karuizawa (Japan), sculptor - Yoshinori Sato.

The honor of erecting the world's first full-length monument to Holmes fell to... Japan. The sculpture can be seen in the city of Karuizawa, where the most famous Japanese translator of “Holmes” Nobuhara Ken lived, who worked on the cycle about the adventures of the detective for 30 years, from 1923 (“The Hound of the Baskervilles”) to 1953 (complete collection).

Certain difficulties arose with the installation of the monument - there were fears that the European style of the Holmes statue would not fit into the classical Japanese look of the city, but in the end, persistent enthusiasts of the project prevailed. The monument was made by the famous Japanese sculptor Sato Yoshinori and opened on October 9, 1988 - just a month after Switzerland. What the Japanese Holmes is thinking about is not precisely established. Probably about translation difficulties.

In 1991, the turn came to Edinburgh. Here, in the homeland of Conan Doyle, the third monument to Sherlock Holmes was unveiled on June 24, 1991, which caused considerable excitement among Stevenson's admirers - what about the monument to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, huh? Stevenson remained on the sidelines this time, but the Edinburgh Federation of Builders was luckier - the opening of the monument was timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of its creation.

Edinburgh Holmes is set on Picardy Place, the birthplace of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The bronze sculpture was sculpted by Gerald Lang.

In London, a monument to the world's most famous detective and detective Sherlock Holmes was unveiled on September 24, 1999 at the Baker Street metro station.

Holmes appeared thoughtfully looking into the distance, dressed for the rainy London weather - in a long raincoat, a hat with a small brim and with a pipe in his right hand.

The author of the three-meter bronze monument was the famous English sculptor John Doubleday.

And on April 27, 2007, a monument to the great detective by Andrei Orlov was opened on Smolenskaya Embankment in Moscow, near the British Embassy. This was the first monument where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are depicted together. This is understandable. Our popularly beloved television series is not about deduction with common sense, but about friendship, about the local way of talking in the kitchen, about ideal relationships between people. In the sculptures one can discern the faces of actors Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin, who at one time played the roles of these Conan Doyle heroes.

The opening of the monument was timed to coincide with the 120th anniversary of the publication of the first book about the adventures of a private detective - the story “A Study in Scarlet.” “The composition of the monument was determined from the very beginning - it had to be a small-sized urban sculpture, with a bench so that a person could sit on this bench and come into contact with the images of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,” said the author of the monument, Andrei Orlov.

Russian actor Vasily Livanov, who was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain for the best embodiment of the image of the legendary Sherlock Holmes, took part in the creation of the monument.

There is a saying that if you sit between Holmes and Watson and touch the doctor's notebook, many problems will be solved.

But in Riga there is no monument to the heroes of Conan Doyle yet. But it is Riga that is the only city in the world where Sherlock Holmes' birthday is celebrated. For the second year now, Riga residents are organizing a celebration in honor of the famous detective’s birthday.

And although the great detective, a character in Conan Doyle’s works, has nothing to do with the Baltic states, in the Latvian capital he is considered almost a fellow countryman. And all because it was here, from 1979 to 1986, that the television series “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson”, directed by Igor Maslennikov, was filmed, in which the main role was played by actor Vasily Livanov.

Old Riga has been successfully transformed into London's Baker Street. Holmes, performed by Livanov, was recognized as one of the best screen images of the great detective, for which Vasily Livanov was awarded the Order of the British Empire.