(24 June). International carnivals are conducted in the town from 1995 and from 2000 Pushkin is a member of the Federation of European Carnival Cities. Large scale cleanup and reconstruction of the town was conducted before the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the town (24 June 2010). In April 2004 vandals pushed the monument of Lenin from its pedestal breaking the statue. The reconstruction of the Catherine Cathedral began on the place of the monument on 7 December 2006. Another monument of Lenin was heavily damaged on 6 December 2010 in an explosion staged by an unknown group.
Coat of arms
Coat of arms of Pushkin (Tsarskoye Selo)
The coat of arms of Tsarskoye Selo was adopted on 12 March 1831 as a crowned monogram of Catherine I. It was however not the emblem of the city, but only of the imperial residence. Two town emblems were proposed by Baron Bernhard Karl von Koehne, one in 1859 and another in 1882, but neither was accepted.
In Soviet times the town had no coat of arms. In 1990, the coat of arms of 1831 was registered as the emblem of Museum "Tsarskoye Selo" and for this reason could not be approved as a symbol of the city. The Decree of Pushkin City Council of 15 March 2001 approved the following coat of arms. It featured an oval shield with the monogram of Catherine I on red background. The shield was topped with a golden crown and had golden laurel branches underneath. On 25 March 2010, Pushkin Municipal Council approved the current four-panel coat of arms. Two of its panels feature identical crowned monograms of Catherine I on red background, and the other two parts depict a black double-headed eagle of the Catherine II era on a purple background. The eagle has a red tongue, golden beaks and claws and three crowns. In its right paw the eagle holds a silver torch burning with gold flame and in the left paw it has a two-legged silver anchor without a cross bar. The eagle's breast is covered with a blue oval shield
