Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark/Casa Presei Libere – Bucharest

Posted on 06/10/2024 by Michael

Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark

Casa Scînteii – House of The Spark/Casa Presei Libere – Bucharest

The House of the Free Press (Romanian: Casa Presei Libere), known during the Socialist period as Casa Scînteii, ‘House of The Spark’, is a building in northern Bucharest, Romania, the tallest in the city between 1956 and 2007.

Construction began in 1952 and was completed in 1956. The building was named Combinatul Poligrafic Casa Scînteii ‘I.V.Stalin’ and later Casa Scînteii (Scînteia was the name of the Romanian Communist Party’s official newspaper). It was designed by the architect Horia Maicu, in the Socialist Realist style made popular in Moscow in the early 1950s, resembling the main building of the Moscow State University, and was intended to house all of Bucharest’s printing presses, the newsrooms and their staff.

It has a foundation with an area of 280 by 260 metres (920 ft × 850 ft), the total constructed surface is 32,000 m2 (344,445 sq ft) and it has a volume of 735,000 m3 (26,000,000 cu ft). Its height is 91.6 m (301 ft) without the television antenna, which measures an additional 12.4 m (41 ft), bringing the total height to 104 m (341 ft).

Between 1952 and 1966, Casa Scînteii was featured on the reverse of the 100 lei banknote.

100 lei banknote, 1952, reverse

On 21 April 1960, a statue of Vladimir Lenin, made by Romanian sculptor Boris Caragea, was placed in front of the building. However, this statue was removed on 3 March 1990, following the Romanian counter-revolution of 1989.

Casa Scînteii – FOTOFORTEPAN MHSZ

On 30 May 2016, the Monument to Capitalism, ‘Wings’, was inaugurated in the same place.

Renamed Casa Presei Libere (‘House of the Free Press’), the building has basically the same role nowadays, with many of today’s newspapers having their headquarters in it.

As of 2023, the House of the Free Press is the only building in Bucharest that has kept the hammer and sickle communist symbol, together with the Star, which appears on repeated reliefs on its façade.

Text above from (a revised) Wikipedia posting.

Architect;

Horia Maicu

Engineer;

Panaite C. Mazilu

Location;

Piata Casa Presei Libere

GPS;

44.480907°N

26.071261°E

Construction started;

1952

Completed;

1957

Height;

104m (341ft)

Moscow State University

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Memento Park, Budapest

Posted on 20/09/2024 by Michael

Memento Park

Memento Park, Budapest

This is a collection of statues, bas reliefs and busts that used to be located in public spaces in the city of Budapest during the period of the countries Socialist construction. This is similar (but not an exact equivalent) of the Park of the Fallen/Muzeon Art Park, Moscow, and the Museum of Socialist Art – Sofia, Bulgaria. It consists of 41 items, spread out over three sections, in the open air. The collection consists of what might be called the seminal works that were on display in the city but the curation also seems to have chosen some of the exhibits based upon the uniqueness of their design. Hungarian sculptors seemed to have followed a slightly different path in representing individuals and events from some of the other countries in Eastern Europe. Here you will see figures that are almost abstract, still ‘figurative’ but a shift away from the norm of the time.

What to look for;

a couple of good Lenins – although one of them looks slightly different from what we’re used to – and one of which Vladimir Ilyich holds his scrunched up cap in his left hand;

Memento Park – 01

an interesting, stylised, made of stone, ‘the only Cubist-style monument of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the world’ to the right of the main entrance;

Memento Park – 07

a truly monumental statue of a Soviet Red Army man – who used to be placed at base of the memorial to Freedom in present day Liberty Square;

Memento Park – 02

the large statue group as a monument to Bela Kun and the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic, a late statue (1986) its composition is quite unique and seems to be open to a whole number of interpretations;

Memento Park – 03

a couple of monuments to Georgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian leader of the Communist (Third) International;

Memento Park – 04

the two bas relief panels that were originally planned to be part of the decoration of one of the Budapest metro system;

Memento Park – 05

the robotic forms of the three Hungarian volunteers of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War;

Memento Park – 06

the wall to commemorate the defeat of the Hungarian Counter-Revolution of 1956.

Memento Park – 08

More information about all the statues in the Park can be found in the official guide book, In the shadow of Stalin’s boots.

It’s a bit of a mixed message. It thinks it’s critical of the Socialist past – which the narrative puts down to be one only of Soviet occupation – but, from time to time, has to acknowledge that it was the Soviet Red Army that liberated the country from the Nazis. The only country that threw out the fascists, first the Italian and then the Germans, without the direct intervention of the Red Army, was the Albanians. The rest of Eastern Europe didn’t do it by themselves.

Perhaps one of the most telling statements made in the book is on page 4, second paragraph. Here it states ‘Hungary finished the Second World War in 1945 on the losing side’. By December 1944 the Red Army had surrounded Budapest but it took them 50 days to destroy the resistance of the German Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators. The remnants of this support for fascism obviously were not totally destroyed throughout the country and it was from this seed that the counter-revolution of 1956 grew – nurtured by the capitalist ‘West’.

Location;

To the south west of the city centre, just outside the official city limits.

1223 Budapest XXII. district, Balatoni út – Szabadkai utca corner

GPS;

47.42671015031753º N

18.999903359092098º E

How to get there by public transport;

From central Budapest take the Metro line No. 4 to Kelenfold, the end of the line. Once out of the metro system and in the passageway under the railway lines of the mainline station look for a sign pointing you to Örmezö which will take you to the bus station (blue buses) where you want to catch either the 101E, 101B or the 150. There’s an electronic information board as you come up from the underpass indicating how long before they depart. This is an express bus with few stops and Memento Park is the second of these, indicated on a screen as well as being announced. The second time the voice mentions a stop it is imminent. The entrance is just behind the bus as you get off, look for the black boots.

Memento Park website

Opening times;

Everyday from 10.00 – 18.00

Entrance;

Adults; 3,000 HUF

Students; 1,800 HUF

Children (under 14) 1,200 HUF

Guide book available at the ticket counter;

2,000 HUF

Museum of Socialist Art – Sofia, Bulgaria

The Great Patriotic War Museum and War Memorial – Gori

Posted on 15/08/2024 by Michael

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 01

The Great Patriotic War Museum and War memorial – Gori

The Museum

This is quite a small museum and considering the huge numbers of people – especially during the tourist season – who go to Gori for the Stalin Museum (only a couple of hundred metres up the road) doesn’t get many visitors at all.

For many of those who do go there it might appear somewhat underwhelming as it doesn’t contain a lot of artefacts. However, I think that’s the ‘problem’ of the visitor not the museum – but also a ‘problem’ of which I myself am guilty.

War museums in the west – or certainly in the UK – are devoted to the instruments of war, the weapons that have been used through the ages as technology makes the task of killing someone ‘easier’ and more sophisticated. Yes, there will be exhibitions, normally ‘special’ ones that complement/supplement the permanent display, that place a greater emphasis on those who were fighting or were caught up in the conflict but the norm is to display what does the killing.

I think I’ve come to understand – and it took the visit to a number of museums in various part of what was the Soviet Union – that Soviet museums of the Great Patriotic War were primarily dedicated to those who fought and died. The museums were more like memorials to the dead than celebrations of what was used to kill them.

Although the museum in Gori is small this is even more evident in a couple of the larger museums I have visited recently – the first being the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow and the second the Museum to the Battle of Stalingrad in Stalingrad/Volgograd. Both those museums have military equipment on show but the vast majority of the items on display are much more personal, items that the soldiers and civilians carried as well as many photographs of those who fought and died.

At the heart of both those museums is a virtual shrine to those who gave their lives for the Soviet Motherland to which visiting groups of school children, military personnel – as well as many other Russian visitors – treat as a sort of pilgrimage to pay homage and thanks to those who died in the fight against Nazism. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed many years ago the Russian people still understand that the Great Patriotic War was an ‘existential’ (a word that has probably become overused in recent times) struggle for the country. Defeat wouldn’t have just meant losing the war, it would have resulted in the end of the Russian people as a nation.

And the museum in Gori mirrors that but on a much smaller scale. When it comes to exhibits there more in the way of photographs, of scenes from the various battle fronts but also of Georgians (and, I must assume, those from Gori and the surrounding area) who died in the war. Although there was no fighting on the territory of Georgia as such around 350,000 Georgians lost their lives on other fronts and in other battles against the Nazis. In this museum some of those are remembered with their photographs displayed in the corner of the museum.

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 02

There are, however, other items of interest for a visitor. These include;

a full length statue of Joseph Vassarionovich Djughashvili (Joseph Stalin) standing at the bottom on the single room which is the museum. Not the best of likenesses but one to add to those searching for his statues in Gori, complementing those in a near-by park and the railway station. (Both those a more accurate likeness, I think.);
a number of interesting banners from different regiments and battalions, some with images of VI Lenin and/or JV Stalin. Some are not in the best of condition but not surprising considering the ferocity of the battles;

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 03

a collection of Nazi insignia, in display cases on the floor – emulating the fate of the Nazi banners thrown at the feet of Stalin, and in front of the Lenin Mausoleum, in Red Square on the first Victory Day in 1945;
a small statue depicting homage to the Red Flag.

The War Memorial

Great Patriotic War Memorial – Gori

Gori’s War Memorial, to the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, is located in Hero’s Square – which is the small garden in front of the main entrance to the museum.

The memorial begins just to the right of the museum entrance. Here there’s a plaque, in Georgian, with an inscription which quotes part of the poem by the Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze – ‘Let the Banners Wave on High’ (დროშები ჩქარა):

‘დიდება ხალხისთვის წამებულ რაინდებს,

ვინც თავი გასწირა, ვინც სისხლი დაღვარა.

მათ ხსოვნას სამშობლო სანთლებად აინთებს’

‘Glory to those with souls devoid of fear,
Who for the people’s cause did bravely die…
Their names shine bright like torches in the night…’

Then there is ceramic mural which takes the form of an ‘L’ shape, with a small part on the wall of the museum and then the longer side being on a wall that runs the length of the square. On here you see depicted both figures in the land army as well as those from the naval armed forces. As stated above no battles actually took place on Georgian soil but many Georgians did fight and die on the various fronts and those from Gori are memorialised inside the museum.

Georgian Socialist Realist art, especially when it comes to murals and bas reliefs, is very distinctive. The same can be said of the statuary of the period. In both those art forms the rounds are exaggerated as are the straight edges of the human form. This can be seen here in Gori but is also demonstrated on the Mother of Georgia – Kartlis Deda statue in Tbilisi; the wall panels next to the Bodorna Hydroelectric plant (along the ‘military road’ which goes up to the Russian border at Kazbegi); and the mural on the side of the telephone exchange in Tskaltubo.

The specific Georgia style gives the figures an almost comic aspect. This is enhanced by the fact that the murals, at least the majority I’ve seen, are made up of smaller sections (whether ceramic or stone) and the spaces between the blocks give the impression that the figures are string puppets where there are gaps between the joints.

The first group of three, on the museum wall, are sailors and the ’rounding’ of the figures makes them out to be burly, muscle bound bruisers and the exaggerated cheeks bones make them out to be the picture of health.

This style also appears to make the figures less serious in their demeanour. In the first group along the long wall, nearest the museum, we have a group of sailors marching in formation. Some of them are looking at the viewer and seem happy that they are going off to war.

In the centre of the long wall (now partially obscured by an Christian cross, part of the monument to the Russo-Georgian War of 2008) is a group of three soldiers, giving a clenched fist salute – the sign of victory.

The Soviet symbol of the the Hammer and Sickle appears underneath the dates 1941-1945 (the duration of the war) and stars surround the figures of the left side of the wall.

Everything changes on the right of the dates where we see a celebration of peace, a child being protected from its fall by open, outstretched hands with images of doves flying around behind.

A few metres in front of the central part of the long bas-relief is a small stone circle that, at one time, would have housed the Eternal Flame. When this ceased to be in use I don’t know but seems to represent a denial of the sacrifice of Georgians in the struggle against Nazism in the 1940s – because it was the Soviet Union for which they fought. This is also reflected in the manner in which the War Memorial in Vake Park, in Tbilisi, has been allowed to go to rack and ruin.