TALLINN - A design for Estonia's long-awaited Freedom Monument has been given governmental approval, despite a poll showing only 44 percent of respondents supported the statue.
Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo announced the design 's a large liberty cross atop a 28-meter column 's had been endorsed by the government on Aug. 30.
The design was earlier unveiled as the winning entry selected by a committee of public figures, headed by the Lutheran Archbishop Andres Poder. But it was immediately decried as lacking artistic vision.
A recent poll published in the Eesti Paevaleht newspaper showed only 44 percent of respondents were in favor of the monument, while 27 percent were against it and 29 percent had no opinion.
The poll failed to faze engineer Rainer Sternfeld, one of the four designers of the monument, who said 44 percent was quite a high approval rate, and predicted that the undecided respondents were more likely in favor of the design than against it.
With the government's endorsement, work can now begin on constructing the monument on a plot of land overlooking Tallinn's Freedom Square. But already there are murmurs within the government that changes could be made to the design.
Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said the material selected for the column 's dolomite rock 's might not stand up to the elements, and suggested a switch to granite.
It is no doubt the first of many changes to be made to the design, which could look very different by the time it materializes, as planned, by November 2008, the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of Estonia's War of Independence.
