Ekaterina Persidskaya
Ekaterina Persidskaya, sculptor. 12.12.1903-1991. Anyone who travels to the center of Zelenogorsk along the Primorsky Highway will automatically turn their gaze toward the fountain decorated with a bronze sculpture: a girl in a light dress lifts up an enormous fish by its gills, from whose tooth-filled mouth a jet of water is flowing. The bronze sculpture of the girl was done by Ekaterina Persidskaya (1903-1991). In the late 1920s, the artist had the opportunity to join an expedition to the Ussuriysk Krai. She observed the way of life of the native inhabitants and was present at the first congress of the Udege people. The Udege (Udihe, Udekhe, or Udeghe in their own language) are a people with a small population who live in the mountains and foothills of the Sikhote-Alin and on the banks of tributaries of the Ussuri and the Amur. For centuries, the main occupations of the Udege were hunting and fishing. Upon her return to Leningrad, Persidskaya created a serious of sculptures featuring these people. Her sculpture of a shrunken old woman with a pipe made an especially strong impression on her contemporaries as a symbolic image of the old world. Another statue, a young girl with an open book in her hands, represented the radical changes occurring in the lives of the peoples of the Far East. In the 1940s, Persidskaya created the sculpture Udege Girl with Fish, a bronze cast of which became the compositional center of a fountain in Zelenogorsk. Persidskaya had also intended to complete the fountain composition by installing the sculpture Udege Boy in the middle of the lower pool.