elements is beyond doubt. Legends connected with the statue Contemporaries noticed that Peter the Great was the idol of Nicholas I who had in all things tried to imitate his glorious ancestor. The ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska (1872–1971), who was a favourite of Nicholas II, was offered the Mariinsky Palace as a place of residence. She refused, with the rejoinder that two emperors had already turned away from an ill-fated building and Nicholas did not want to be the third to join them. By this reference to 'two emperors' Kschessinska meant the statues of the Bronze Horseman and the Monument to Nicholas I. Later similar rumours began to be attributed to the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna of Russia. However this legend has been called into question because Maria actively participated in work on the monument. Contemporaries have noticed that this monument is aligned with the statue of the Bronze Horseman, and is almost an identical distance from Saint Isaac's Cathedral. This juxtaposition has generated numerous jokes of the type "Kolya to Petia catches up, but Isaak's Cathedral disturbs!" There is also a city legend, which claims that the day after the monument was unveiled, on a foot of the horse there was found a wooden tablet on which had been written: "you will not catch up!". On the basis of this legend in the 19th century in St. Petersburg there was a saying: "the Fool of the clever catches up, but the monument to it disturbs" In the Soviet era there was a legend about the uniqueness of the design of the monument, that its axle load distribution was executed by lead shot. But when the monument was subjected to restoration in the 1980s, no trace of any lead shot was found inside it. Erection of the monument In the first anniversary of death of emperor Nikolas I (in February 1856) emperor Alexander II had published on the Highest command about the beginning of designing a monument. Architect Monferran received the commission to present "reasons about a monument to Nikolay I" (). In May 1856 Monferran's project was confirmed and in June the monument installation site was defined: "opposite to the Mariinsky palace, faced to the Isaakievsky cathedral" (). Horse figure Several different sculpture models were used in creating the monument. A large model of the horse which Nicholas I sits on was commissioned from the Tsar's favourite sculptor, Peter Klodt.