VI Lenin in Bender – Pridnestrovie

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VI lenin at Komsomol Park Bender

VI lenin at Komsomol Park Bender

VI Lenin in Bender – Pridnestrovie

There are two statues of Lenin in Bender, the ‘border’ town between Pridnestrovie and Moldova – and the principal entry point between Tiraspol and Chisinau.

The first one is on the edge of Komsomol Park on Strada Lenina, about 400m west of the Central Market. This was completed in 1951 and was the work of Sergey Merkulov (sculptor), and V. Mednek (architect). Merkulov was also the creator of the seated VI Lenin in Tverskaya Square in Moscow.

Although the statue is in a good condition the plinth is starting to show signs of wear and could do with some attention. However, the general area seems to be kept tidy, with roses being tended in the flower garden in front of the plinth.

Location;

At the edge of Komsomol Park on Strada Lenina 10, opposite the Gorky Cinema.

GPS;

46.82535 N

29.47594 E

VI Lenin outside a shoe factory

VI Lenin outside a shoe factory

The second statue is just a few minutes walk away being behind the Gorky cinema, in front of a small building which is now a shoe factory. Don’t know if it held that function when the statue was installed. Unfortunately, to date – and which is not uncommon – I have no further information on the sculptor or when it was first inaugurated.

This is also in a good condition although the surroundings outside of a factory are not as luxurious as those of a well tended public park.

Location;

At Strada Moscovie 21, outside a present day shoe factory.

GPS;

46.82305 N

29.47528 E

Soviet Open Air Museum of Petru Costin – near Chișinău – Moldova

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Soviet Open Air Museum of Petru Costin

Soviet Open Air Museum of Petru Costin

Soviet Open Air Museum of Petru Costin – near Chișinău – Moldova

This is the outside companion piece to the Petru Costin Gallery in Ialoveni. It is home to those artefacts (including a small plane and a couple of helicopters) that were either designed to be placed in the open air or are too big to be inside the gallery.

There’s a description of many of the items – so you can know who is actually represented and also at times an indication of where they came from, when and why they were removed. However, there’s no information on how they ended up in a field on the side of a valley in central Moldova.

There’s only one image of JV Stalin and that has been heavily vandalised. This initial attack would have taken place in the early 1960s (I would imagine) but it remained otherwise intact for the next 30 years during the period of Revisionist control of the first worker’s state. Where? It’s not known.

Not surprisingly there are many statues/busts of VI Lenin but amongst the collection there are also one or two surprises. There’s a head and shoulders of both a young and an older Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife. There’s a bust of Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space, who I would have thought would have survived the collapse of the Soviet Union as he represented a Russian as well as a Soviet achievement. Also, not a surprise, is the presence of a number of images of FE Dzerzhinsky (‘Iron Felix’), the first head of the Cheka.

YM Sverdlov, barely lived for two years after the October Revolution as he succumbed to the ‘Spanish’ flu pandemic in 1919 (a matter that rarely gets mentioned in histories of the Revolution but which must have had an impact on both sides in the Civil War/War of Intervention. There are a couple of busts of SM Kirov, the leader of the Bolsheviks in Leningrad who was assassinated in 1934. Military leaders are also represented, including VI Chapayev and MV Frunze, who both played a crucial role in the war to protect the Revolution during the Civil War against the White, reactionary forces.

There’s a couple of busts of Karl Marx but Frederick Engels isn’t represented. There are also a couple of statues of MI Kalinin, the Soviet President for just under 20 years – one of which doesn’t quite look right. The large, headless red torso is almost certainly that of JV Stalin – it has his classic stance. The whole statue must have been immense but there’s no more information about where it might have stood. It’s only speculation (based only on its size) that it might be what remains of the statue that stood at the entrance to the Volga-Don Canal, a little south of Stalingrad, which was replaced by a statue of VI Lenin.

There were also some statues – and pieces of statues – which wouldn’t have been controversial but had just, presumably, become ‘unloved’, or were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This statue park is similar to the Park of the Fallen/Muzeon Art Park in Moscow, the Museum of Socialist Art – Sofia and Memento Park close to Budapest.

Location;

2J94+54 Scoreni

That doesn’t look like an address but if you put it into a map search it will get you there.

How to get there;

This is a very unfriendly public transport location. The museum is about 5 km north-west of the town of Suruceni and the museum itself is along a dirt road just under a kilometre from the main road. It goes downhill (steeply) which means it comes up hill even more steeply. Consider the option of talking to Natalia at the Petru Costin Gallery in Ialoveni. It might turn out a bit more expensive but it will get you there much easier.

GPS;

47.01796 N

28.60530 E

Petru Costin Gallery – Ialoveni – Moldova

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Petru Costin Gallery - Ialoveni

Petru Costin Gallery – Ialoveni

Petru Costin Gallery – Ialoveni – Moldova

This gallery in a small town just on the edge of Chișinău (full official name Galeria colecțiilor Petru Costin a consiliului raional Ialoveni) is a strange place.

Housed in what was a school for special needs children before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 this four story ‘museum’ is certainly unique. Petru Costin was a Romanian Customs Official and hoarder. He collected anything and everything from Moldova during the Socialist period – together with some earlier religious works.

It’s not really curated in the sense you would expect in a ‘normal’ museum which makes visiting some of the rooms overwhelming. There’s little in the way of description of most of the articles and missing dates on some items makes if difficult to recognise any development in the technology, for example, in the electrical equipment rooms.

Although there are items related to the decoration and propaganda produced in the Soviet Union, for example, many hundreds of enamel badges in one of the first floor rooms – but surprisingly no badges of VI Lenin (unless I missed them in the general chaos) – those especially interested in such material have to wait until you are taken to the very last room on the ground floor.

This would have originally have been the school’s assembly hall and is the largest single room in the building. It’s packed with statues, busts, paintings, banners, pendants and general ‘memorabilia’ from the Soviet era. Although there has been some element of organisation of the material there is so much, and so little space, that the curator just seems to have eventually given up.

That’s a shame. We know that all museums have much more material than they have on public display (I read recently an article where the V and A Museum in London is trying to make more of its collection ‘in storage’ available to the general public) but the decision in this gallery is to make everything available on show – even if it means it’s difficult to properly see and appreciate what’s there. I suppose the only solution would be more space – but that would provide its own problems.

Most museums have so much to see that you end up missing some of the most interesting items – not seeing the wood for the trees. And that’s even more the case here.

I didn’t even make a start on counting the images of VI Lenin, both in statuary and in other forms. JV Stalin makes a number of appearances followed, in number, by images of FE Dzerzhinsky, I understand both Lenin and Stalin and I can appreciate the role ‘Iron Felix’ played in the early defence of the Revolution but I have never been able to work out exactly why (amongst some of the other important Bolshevik leaders of the 1920s and 30s) he seemed to be so respected by so many of the Soviet population – even into the Revisionist period.

The slide show below aims to pick out some detail from the chaos – perhaps a second visit might be warranted to discover what I might have missed the first time.

Location;

Strada Stefan cel Mare 4, Ialoveni

Telephone;

373 (0)69294556

GPS;

46.95136 N

28.78376 E

How to get there;

Trolleybus No 36 (destination Ialoveni) heading south-east down Boulevard Stefan cel Mare in Chișinău will take you within a few minutes walk of the gallery. Get off just before the roundabout at the bottom of the very long hill. Be careful if you return to Chișinău on the no. 36. The second half of the return route is completely different from the outward and you end up close to the Triumphal Arch by the back way.

Cost is 10 leu (6 leu for Chișinău and 4 leu for Ialoveni).

The matrushka No. 35, from the Central Bus Station, will also take you there.

Website – in Romanian only;

A companion piece to the internal gallery (and well worth the effort of visiting) is the Petru Costin Open Air Museum (see the separate page on this blog for what is on display there) but this is not easy if you are dependent on public transport. One of the best options is to talk to (the English speaking) Natalia at the Gallery. She can arrange for one of the local volunteers (or a local taxi driver) to take you there, wait whilst you walk around the site and bring you back to Ialoveni. Cost around 400 leu/€20.