The monument to famous businessman Ivan Kharitonenko is located on one of the central squares of the city – Pokrovska street. Successful Sumy patron and sugar manufacturer was one of the richest people of the Russian Empire of the ХІХ century. Ivan Kharitonenko influenced the development of Sumy – he and his descendants built educational institutions, hospitals and other important facilities in the city.
As gratitude, Sumy citizens decided to erect a monument in honor of the fellow countryman. The construction was carried out with the money of ordinary residents of the city under the project of talented sculptors O. Opeshkin and A. Croisi. In 1899 the work was completed. A remarkable monument from Finnish marble became an adornment of the city and a tribute to a great patron of art.
After the October Revolution of 1917, the monument to Kharitonenko in 1918 was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, replacing it with the figure of Lenin. Nevertheless, after the independence of Ukraine in 1991 and the rise of the national consciousness of the Ukrainians, Sumy became one of the few cities in eastern Ukraine where the monument to Lenin was demolished and the figure of an outstanding city dweller was returned on its former place. Officially it is believed that the reconstruction of the monument to Kharitonenko was carried out in 1996 by the local sculptor Anatoly Avramovich Ivchenko.
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