Published: 24 August, 2007, 06:50
Edited: 24 August, 2007, 06:50
More and more monuments of all shapes and sizes, from the sublime to the ridiculous are filling the streets of Moscow. Many were put up illegally, and face being torn down, but this is little deterrent to the capital's amateur sculptors.
Five years ago, there were 600 monuments in Moscow. Now even the city’s Commission for Monumental Art has lost count.
“It’s ridiculous. Take this year. They put up a monument to the first person to deposit money in a bank. We don’t have a monument to Saltykov-Schedrin, or even a suitable one to Turgenev. These are the people who really deserve it,” Sergei Petrov, Representative from the Commission for Monumental Art, says.
A stroll through the capital might lead you to a stone ode to the Soviet cheese brand “Druzhba”. Sometimes finding the deeper meaning takes a little work. A caretaker with the face of Moscow’s Mayor. There's a lot to see in the Museum of Modern Art, but perhaps even more outside.
“Sculpture can exert a great psychological effect on people. We should fight for everything that is good, kind, life-affirming and eternal,” sculptor Anastacia Motivilova affirms.
Moscow has had a face-lift, and some feel its many new features distract the eye from what really matters.
Some monuments do not pass the Commission's check. But the status of pieces of art gives them a certain immunity. So the giant pipes standing in psychedelic memorial to a Moscow water-pipeline are, by this standard, also sacred.