Moscow is truly a capital city. As a visitor you could arrive from any of its three airports or nine train stations, among other. The city boasts large boulevards and avenues. There are many impressive public buildings and almost all statues in town dwarf its viewers. The popular style, in art and architecture, seems to be one of bigger-than-life human heroes and historic statues. 

But it is also a city of many parks, at the time designed both for the recreation and education of citizens. I was recently told that in Soviet times, the politburo speeches would be live streamed into the public announcement systems in the city parks. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I do know that all parks I have been to so far - which admittedly are only a few of the city’s many - do have some public announcement system. I have heard it being used many times. 

Since I do not speak enough Russian yet, I am not quite sure what is being announced, but that is not so much the point. Gorky park, near the centre of town, is one of the largest inner-city parks and an absolute local favourite, particularly with the young and beautiful Muscovites. They claim their park with impromptu picnics, dancing venues, boom boxes, but also just simply by coming out in big numbers to enjoy the scene and belong. Gorky park is large and boasts many places to eat and drink, to relax and sit either by an artificial lake or in a manicured garden. 

The promenade out of Gorky park seamlessly leads you to Muzeon, another local favourite. Muzeon is like an open air gallery, where you wander around a variety of sculptures from the 20th and 21st century. You may find a delightful depiction of the city’s patron, Saint George, perching highly balanced on the head of a snakelike dragon. There are small, intimate, and very human statues, as well as abstract sculptures. And placed among these is also a collection of robust Soviet-Era statues of writers, workers, scientists and political leaders. Muzeon is home to what are called “the fallen monuments”. The contrasts are striking.

One collection of rather harrowing sculptures is collectively named as ‘Sculptures for the Victims of Totalitarian Regimes’. People pause here and look in thought at a wall made of piled-up abstract heads, encased in steel cages. With his back to the wall, some 10m away, is a statue of Stalin, about 4m high, made out of pink granite and depicting his features clearly and recognisably. But Stalin’s face is missing the nose. 

One wonders, how the nose of the statue could have gone missing. Was it an accident maybe or was it deliberate? And why is it left without? Maybe they could not put it together again, after a fall? The statue now is under city state protection for its cultural and historic significance (as can be read on a nearby signpost). There is no mentioning of the missing nose though and it is not apparent from looking at other statues nearby, that they would have been altered in any way. 

But it reminded me of Egyptian statues of pharaohs and their mutilated noses. These ancient statues were thought to hold the power of the person. According to E. Bleiberg, curator of the Brooklyn Museum's Egyptian art galleries, in ancient Egypt there was a “basic cultural belief that in damaging the image, damage is inflicted on power of the person represented: The damaged part of the body is no longer able to do its job. Without a nose, the statue-spirit ceases to breath, so it is being ‘killed’.”

I do not know whether ancient Egypt and this pink granite statue of Stalin are connected. But it is a timely topic to think about, given recent events around the world. Can statues that have fallen out with societal values and belief systems still be monuments that connect people to their history? Encourage dialogue, learning and conversation? And if so, how?

Photo credit: Photo taken at Muzeon in June 2020 by the author

Sources:

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/egyptian-statues-broken-noses-artsy/index.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/charlottesville-protest-confederate-statue-taken-down-what-to-do-a7892856.html 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Confederate_monuments_and_memorials