Free Republic

A giant statue of the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus was unveiled in Arecibo on the northern coast of Puerto Rico on Tuesday (June 14). Russian-based sculptor, Zurab Tsereteli, created the 268 ft (81,68 meter) monument from 2,500 pieces of bronze and steel manufactured in Russia and some 2,000 sq. ft (185.80 sq. meters) of copper sheets. The statue, entitled 'Birth of a New World,' and weighing in at 6,500 tons, is almost twice the height of New York's Statue of Liberty without its base, and is double the height of Rio's Christ the Redeemer. The artwork took over 110,000 hours...

ST. PETERSBURG, August 2 (RIA Novosti, Olga Vtorova) - Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli's monument to the victims of the 9/11 attacks on New York City has been loaded onto a ship in the port of St. Petersburg. The monument, weighing 150 metric tons, will now be taken across the Atlantic and mounted at a site near Ground Zero. Its centerpiece - a huge crystal sculpture representing a tear (hence the title, "Tear of Sorrow") - has been clad in leaf iron to keep it from being damaged along the way. In accordance with Tsereteli's design, the tear, with water pumped...