OAKVILLE, Ontario - It may have taken up to two weeks for anyone to notice but police are investigating the theft of a massive bronze statue of a Ukrainian poet from a local park.
Thieves likely needed help in making off with the two-tonne statue, which sat on a marble base in Shevchenko Memorial Park, said Andrew Gregorovich of the Taras Shevchenko Museum in Toronto.
"They would have had to use some pretty big machinery, some sort of a forklift to remove it," said Gregorovich, who discovered the theft - and a ladder left behind - on Saturday afternoon.
The statue of Shevchenko, donated by what was then the Soviet republic of Ukraine, was unveiled July 1, 1951 to mark the 60th anniversary of Ukrainian-Canadian settlement.
Taras Shevchenko, who died in 1861 at the age of 47, was a poet and a painter and his literary heritage is considered to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature.
Gregorovich suspects the statue, worth an estimated $350,000, was stolen for its bronze metal.
"The park is in an isolated area under recent residential development. The statue was cut off at the legs and removed some time between the 15th and 31st of December 2006," a Halton Regional police statement said.
Gregorovich said he hopes the statue is returned, despite its damaged state.
