2208 Pushkin Asteroid and Alexander Pushkin Statue - Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo), Russia - Extraterrestrial Locations on Waymarking.com

2208 Pushkin was discovered on August, 22 1977 by N. S. Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. It is named for the famous Russian poet Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin. The asteroid is located in the Cybele group which is stabilized by the planet Jupiter. It appears to be a carbonaceous chondrite asteroid with a mean diameter was 38.31 (± 2.8) kilometers.

A life-size bronze statue depicts Pushkin seated on the right side an ornate bench. His right arm is resting on the back of the bench and his right hand is propping up his tilted head. His left elbow is also resting on the back of the bench. The sculpture is placed on a red granite base. On the front o the base in gold Cyrillic lettering is his name:

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born into a Russian noble family in Moscow on June 6, 1799. He graduated from the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo (now the town of Pushkin) located a few kilometers south of St. Petersburg and spent most of his life as a resident of St. Petersburg. Pushkin is considered to be the greatest of all Russian poets and the founder of the modern Russian literature.

Pushkin published his first poem at age fifteen and continued his writing career his entire life. In 1820, he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila, which was the basis for the opera by Glinka. His verse novel Eugene Onegin was written between 1825 and 1832. It was the inspiration for Tschaikovsky's famous opera of the same name, first performed in 1879. His play Boris Gudunov was made into two operas by Mussorgsky's, first in 1868 - 1869 and a second version on 1871- 1872. His poem The Bronze Horseman is considered a classic of Russian literature and is well known by every Russian school child.

Pushkin died as a result of wounds received in a duel in St. Petersburg on February 10, 1837 at age 37.