Irkutsk Proposes New Monument to Leonid Gaidai
The proposed sculpture depicts young Gaidai hiding between cinema seats to watch Charlie Chaplin films.
The team of the Irkutsk «Gaidai Center» has shown what the future monument to the young Leonid Gaidai will look like. The monument will be installed after the opening of a museum dedicated to the life and work of the film director. This was reported on the «Gaidai Center» website.
January 30, 2026, marks the 103rd anniversary of the birth of Soviet cinema legend Leonid Gaidai.
The idea for the urban sculpture was proposed by film director Oksana Tsepilova. She referred to the book «Gaidai. Irkutsk Pages» by Vladimir Berezin, which contains memories of the director«s classmates.
«It turned out that young Lyonya Gaidai loved going to cinemas, of which there were as many as three on Karl Marx Street, to see comedies with Charlie Chaplin. He wanted to watch them over and over again. But the Gaidai family budget did not allow spoiling the younger son so much; he was given only 20 kopecks (less than $0.01 at current rates) for one session. And then Lyonya, after the session ended, would lie down between the rows of seats to remain unnoticed by the ticket collector, and as soon as a new session began, he would get up and again, with bated breath, watch as the people of Irkutsk laughed at the absurd situations the funny guy on screen got into,» said Yuri Yashnikov, head of the «Gaidai Center».
This story became the basis for the future sculpture «Lyonya Gaidai in the Cinema». Its composition will consist of two rows of old cinema seats, between which stands a teenager looking forward in delight — at the movie screen.
It is proposed to place the monument near the future director«s museum on Uritskogo Street. The sculptor invited to the project is Alexander Mironov, the author of the Gaidai monument near the circus. He has already given his consent. The installation is planned by the creative team after the opening of the museum, which is scheduled for 2027.
Recall that the «GaidaiCenter» had long attempted to open a museum on Kasyanova Street, where Leonid Gaidai lived, but this did not succeed. In spring 2022, in an interview with «IrCity», the head of the organization, director Yuri Yashnikov reported that the museum would be in a different location. And in early 2023, an online museum of Leonid Gaidai opened. The project was implemented with funds from a presidential grant.
This is not the only initiative proposed to immortalize the name of the legendary director. In early 2025, the «Gaidai Center» proposed creating a Leonid Gaidai Street in the city. In March, the administration conducted a survey on renaming 4th Zheleznodorozhnaya Street, but survey participants voted against it. And later it became known that Leonid Gaidai Street will appear in the future interuniversity campus in the Sverdlovsk district.
