Monument to the Victims of the White Guard Raid (Orenburg)

The monument to the victims of the White Guard raid on Orenburg stands in 4 April Square on Parkovy Prospekt, close to the House of Soviets. A concrete Red Army soldier holding a grenade and a banner rises above a brick pedestal. It was unveiled in November 1950, when the city was still called Chkalov.

The pedestal reads: "To the fighters for Soviet power who fell in the struggle against Dutov's White Guard bands defending the city of Orenburg on 4 April 1918."

In late January 1918 Red units drove Ataman Alexander Dutov's Cossacks out of Orenburg. On the night of 4 April the Cossacks, led by Colonel Korchakov and Lukin, came back in a raid meant to wipe out the Red Guard garrison. Fighting broke out in several parts of town as they pushed towards the centre, but by midday the city was back under Soviet control. Accounts put the death toll at around 130 people, Red Guards and civilians alike. A mass grave of the victims lies next to the monument, and the square itself is named after the date.

The Chkalov city executive committee approved the monument on 18 March 1950 and set aside 50,000 roubles for it. The sculptor was Anatoly Kozyrev (1918–1980), born in Vyatka Governorate, who moved to Orenburg in 1946 and helped set up and then ran the local art workshops that later grew into the regional branch of the Union of Artists. His early work includes the reliefs on the facade of the Orenburg Drama Theatre. The architect is recorded only by his surname, Avvakumov.

In 2022 the square was closed for landscaping: part of Parkovy Prospekt became a pedestrian zone joining the neighbouring squares into one park, while the monument and the mass grave kept their boundaries. Today it is a quiet spot with benches and fir trees right in the city centre.