YEKATERINBURG, Russia — Strolling around the center of town before the Senegal-Japan World Cup match last week , Ilya Panasenko, 25, an accountant from Moscow, was startled to come across a massive qwerty keyboard resting by the side of the Iset River.

“This is cool, because I would not have expected this,” he said. “In Russia, we mostly have statues of Lenin.”

That is not strictly accurate. While it is correct to say that some version of Lenin usually lurks nearby — Russia once had an entire factory dedicated to the production of Lenin statues — he is not the only one. Russia is awash in monuments. Most of them are recognizably monumental, commemorating historical events (the war, the revolution), historical figures (politicians, revolutionary heroes) and historical artists (composers, writers).

But only Yekaterinburg has a monument to the computer keyboard.

With both Latin and Cyrillic letters painted on its keys, the monument is a replica of a classic IBM keyboard, about 30 times larger than the original. It was installed on a hillside along the river during a regional arts competition in 2005, and consists of 86 concrete letters, each weighing anything from 180 pounds (normal letters) to 1,000 pounds (space bar).