In the passage between the Taganskaya stations of the ring and purple lines in the center of Moscow, a bas-relief "Gratitude of the People to the Leader-Commander" was unveiled, with a sculpture of Joseph Stalin in the center.
As the architectural historian Alexander Zinoviev wrote in his Telegram channel, this is a greatly simplified copy of the 1940s monument, which was demolished in 1965 as part of the fight against the cult of personality.
"And although the composition is generally repeated, it can be noted that the material of the panel (ceramics) was not preserved, the color was not reproduced (neither the blue background of the temporary plaster version nor the gold of the final ceramic relief), and they did not attempt to make the details of the ornament around the perimeter. Overall, it turned out to be an ideological gesture, where the main thing was not the restoration of the historical architectural appearance," noted Zinoviev.
Formally, the bas-relief was opened for the 90th anniversary of the metro, although the announcement of its opening was first made on May 10.
On May 13, the Yabloko party announced a petition against the installation of the bas-relief. "Even in the totalitarian system of the 20th century, it was recognized as unacceptable to immortalize the image of a person under whom mass terror became not a tragic accident, but a deliberate state policy," the appeal notes. A day after this, the bas-relief was opened.
In recent years, the authorities have been pursuing a policy of rehabilitating Stalin, with monuments appearing across the country. In May last year, the inscription "Stalin" was installed on Mount Kitkai in the Irkutsk region. In the Vologda region, two monuments to Stalin were installed in the past year.
At the end of April, Putin by decree renamed the Volgograd airport to "Stalingrad," but only formally — technically, this name of the airfield will not be used.
Photo: MONUMENT