Statue of VI Lenin – Main Post Office – Stalingrad

Posted on 07/11/2024 by Michael

Stalingrad Post Office – 01

Statue of VI Lenin – Main Post Office – Stalingrad

There are still many statues of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin throughout what used to be the Soviet Union. Perhaps they’ve disappeared from some of the principal squares but they are still to be found in many towns and cities if you look for them. It’s true that many have been taken down (possibly destroyed in some places) but many of them, I’m sure, have just been placed into some sort of storage – although if you have the money and the space you find versions of Lenin for sale on the internet auction sites. These tend to be mainly from those virulent anti-Communist parts of the erstwhile Soviet Union, such as the Ukraine.

Stalingrad Post Office – 02

One of those which is out of the way is in Stalingrad, standing inside the service hall of the city’s main Post Office building, just a short walk down from the main railway station.

Stalingrad Post Office – 03

I came across this one purely by chance after deciding to walk into the post office just to see what was there. As with many post offices throughout the world it would have been very busy in the past but now is relatively quiet.

Stalingrad Post Office – 04

Literally in the centre of the circular service hall is a standing, white stone statue of Comrade Lenin. He’s on quite a high plinth so he’s looking over the heads of all who visit the building. It’s a more than life-size statue of him and he’s dressed in a suit. His stance is of someone who is making a speech or giving a presentation with his right arm outstretched and in his hand he holds a scrunched-up bunch of papers, presumably the notes for the speech.

(Note; the Hammer and Sickle on the ventilation grill.)

Stalingrad Post Office – 05

This statue appears to be in a good condition and is kept clean, so it is still being treated with respect by the staff who work in the post office.

Stalingrad Post Office – 06

As with most of the statues produced during the Soviet period there is rarely any indication of the actual sculptor. Nor was I able to tell exactly of what it was made, whether it was of sculptured stone or, more likely, of plaster.

Related;

Lenin Square, Stalingrad

Location;

Stalingrad Main Post Office, Ulitsa Mira, 9

GPS;

48.709544º N

44.514978º E

More on the USSR

Children and crocodile fountain – Railway station square – Stalingrad

Posted on 19/07/2024 by Michael

Barmaley Fountain – Stalingrad

More on the USSR

Children and crocodile fountain – Railway station square – Stalingrad

Barmaley Fountain

The Barmaley (Russian: Бармалей) is an informal name of a fountain in the city of Volgograd (formerly known as Stalingrad). Its official name is Children’s Khorovod (Round Dance). The statue is of a circle of six children dancing the khorovod around a crocodile. While the original fountain was removed in the 1950s, two replicas were installed in 2013.

The original fountain was installed in 1930 when the Soviet Union was being adorned with various outdoor architectural works, including similar fountains designed by sculptor Romuald Iodko, a co-author of the Girl with an Oar. The Barmaley Fountain was made widely known from several August 1942 photographs by Emmanuil Evzerikhin that juxtaposed the carnage of the Battle of Stalingrad with the image of children at play.

Children and crocodile statue 1942

The fountain was restored after World War II and was removed in the 1950s.

The allegory of the monument was derived from the eponymous fairy tale poem Barmaley written in 1925 by Korney Chukovsky. Excerpt (literal translation):

Little children! / For nothing in the world / Do not go to Africa / Do not go to Africa for a walk! // In Africa, there are sharks, / In Africa, there are gorillas, / In Africa, there are large / Evil crocodiles / They will bite you, / Beat and offend you – // Don’t you go, children, / to Africa for a walk / In Africa, there is a robber, / In Africa, there is a villain, / In Africa, there is terrible / Bahr-mah-ley! // He runs about Africa / And eats children – / Nasty, vicious, greedy Barmaley!

Barmaley Fountain – Stalingrad – 01

While being burned in fire by Barmaley, Doctor Aybolit asked a crocodile brought in by a gorilla to swallow up Barmaley, so that he could no longer harm little children. The crocodile did so, but Barmaley was later released after promising to change. Barmaley became nicer and proclaimed he would be kinder, that he now loved little children and would become a friendly baker.

Text above from Wikipedia.

Children and crocodile fountain – after liberation 1943

As with many of the monuments in post-Socialist countries it’s not easy to get definitive and exact information about them. Very often the sources that do exist are contradictory or ask more questions than they answer.

It seems the statue had been removed but then replaced with a replica – but I have no idea what happened to the original.

When I saw the same statue that now sits outside the Volgograd Number 1 railway station on the grass below the Gerhardt Mill (the large building next to the Stalingrad Panorama Museum, demonstrating the extent of the damage during the siege) I thought that it was the original, placed there to protect it from any vandalism. However, that is not certain.

What is omitted from the ‘description’ above is that all the children are Young Pioneers, the youth organisation of the Soviet Union. This is evident from the fact that all of them wear the red neckerchief, part of the uniform of Komsomol members. This might imply a political significance of children dancing around a dangerous animal.

Barmaley Fountain – Stalingrad – 02

It’s easy to see why the people of Stalingrad adopted this statue. When it was photographed, dirty but mainly intact, surrounded by the destruction wrought by the Nazi invaders’ bombers it represented the determination of the people to resist the fascists. The children stood for the resilience of the Socialist state.

I find the ideas in the poem from which the statue gets one of its names somewhat strange.

The sculptor was Romuald Iodko and the creation date is stated to be 1930.

When I visited Stalingrad in the summer of 2024 the fountain was not working.

Children and crocodile – immediate post-war years

Stalingrad (Volgograd) Railway Station

Location;

Station Square, Volgograd. In the pedestrian square in front of the main railway station – its original location.

GPS;

48°42′45″N

44°30′49″E

More on the USSR

Stalingrad (Volgograd) Railway Station

Posted on 17/07/2024 by Michael

Stalingrad Railway Station

More on the USSR

Stalingrad (Volgograd) Railway Station

It is located in the Central District of the city at Railway Station Square, 1. The station is one of the largest in Russia and serves long-distance trains and suburban trains.

The first railway to serve Tsaritsyn (now Stalingrad/Volgograd) was the Volga-Don railway in 1862. The first railway station was constructed of wood. In 1871 the station was replaced with a brick structure.

Stalingrad Railway Station – October 1942

During the Second World War, the building was almost completely destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad. In the period from July 1951 to May 1954 the new station building was erected on the site of the old building. The station commissioned June 2, 1954. In 1997 the building of the railway station was designated an architectural monument. In 2005, the station building was renovated for the 60th anniversary of Victory Day, the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War.

On December 29, 2013, the station was the site of a suicide bombing in which at least 16 people were killed. The station was re-opened after reconstruction on May 7, 2014, just in time for Victory Day holidays.

The station is a three-story building with a ground floor tower crowned with a spire. The building is made of a combination of brick and concrete, the facade consists of ornamented granite. The interior walls are mainly marble. The ceiling is decorated with stucco and several paintings of the battles that took place in the city.

Text above from Wikipedia.

Aspects of the building;

Sculpture in the pediment at the front of the building

Stalingrad Station – 07

The Apotheosis of Labour – sculptors M. Pavlovskii, N. Pavlovskaya, V. Bezrukov.

I read somewhere that this is supposed to be a ‘copy’ but with no more information. So don’t really understand that as I don’t think this sculpture was installed in the building that was destroyed in the siege – but I might be wrong.

Note the image on the cover of the folder the male on the left is holding – it’s that of the station building itself.

Ceiling murals

There are three of these ceiling panels – one circular over the ticket hall, another circular over the seated waiting area and the third is rectangular in a large room off the ticket hall that used to be a cafe but which is now a VIP/1st Class lounge – which no one seems to use. However, when I asked to take pictures of that ceiling panel, and the room itself, there was no problem.

Stalingrad Station – 05

The first circular panel represents Tsaritsyn/Stalingrad in war – or more specifically, at the very end of war. The first depicts an image of the Red Army in the city after the victory over the White (reactionary and supported by the imperialist countries) forces in 1918 when it was known as Tsaritsyn. Opposite, on the same panel is an image of the events following the defeat of the Nazi invaders in 1943 when the city – now named Stalingrad – could commence reconstruction as the Red Army went on to victory in Berlin.

Stalingrad Station – 04

The second circular panel depicts landmarks in the civilian life of the city. The first, in 1952, is the opening of the Volga Hydroelectric Station and the other is the opening of the Volga-Don canal in 1961.

Note the trees that are on the left and right of each panel, which play the role of separating the two events. In 1918 there is barely a leaf on the tree, there are more come 1943 but when we go into the 1950s and 60s we see the tree come into full leaf, mirroring the successes of the construction of Socialism.

Stalingrad Station – 06

The rectangular panel depicts a bucolic scene of workers on a State/collective farm in the area. Here note the presence of the electricity pylon commemorating the achievement of the electrification of the whole country, a challenge Lenin posed to the country in declarations in the early 1920s.

The artist of all the panels was Yakov Skripkov.

Bas-reliefs at the front of building

Stalingrad Station – 03

On either side of the main entrance to the station, under the tower and clock, are bas reliefs that depict, on the left, a representation of the Civil War and on the right the Siege of Stalingrad in the Great Patriotic War. Note the Nazi standard being trampled underfoot in the second bas relief.

Stalingrad Station – 02

Information boards

Stalingrad Station – 01

On my visit in late May 2024 there were a number of information panels on display on either side of the main station building entrance basically telling the story of the role of the building in the history of the city from the time of the Civil War, through the siege to reconstruction after the war. This was soon after the celebration of Victory Day of May 9th so they may only have been there temporarily.