Agricultural bas reliefs – Valea Morilor Park – Chișinău – Moldova

Posted on 11/11/2025 by Michael

Bas relief at the Valea Morilor Park, Chișinău

Agricultural bas reliefs – Valea Morilor Park – Chișinău – Moldova

There’s a limited amount of Soviet decoration still visible in Moldova and only one example of this art work in the form of bas reliefs (so far) in Chișinău, the capital of the country.

This is on the façade of a building which is now some banal events venue but which must have had a more official function in the Soviet past.

What we have here are two tableau depicting agricultural, collective farm, life during the period of the construction of Socialism in the Soviet Union.

These are very reminiscent of the images that can be seen on the external walls of the Republic pavilions at the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh) in Moscow, but I didn’t – at the time of my visit – note exactly what images were representing which Republic.

What we have in all such bas reliefs is a respectful representation of working people, productive and working not just for themselves but for the benefit of the collective. We have men, women and children all involved in the productive process from which all will receive the awards and not having the fruits of their labour stolen by the capitalist owners of the means of production. There was a time when the workers of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) had the reins of power in their hands. The fact that they allowed those reins get into the hands of the exploiting class following the death of Comrade Stalin (in 1953) is, for the sake of this discussion, irrelevant. For a time they had the power – why they allowed that power to be taken away from them is an important matter but not something which can be covered here. (That ‘debate’ is available on other pages of this blog.)

In these images there’s always a gentle relationship between the collective farmers and the animals they tend. This would always be an idyllic representation. Farm life, when it comes to livestock, is invariably cruel. The animals are there for one reason – that it to be exploited for what they can produce whilst alive and to provide protein on their deaths. But even though that would have been the reality on any Soviet State/collective farm it would have lacked the industrial slaughter that exists under capitalist food, factory production process. I don’t want to romanticise Soviet agriculture but I don’t believe it ever reached the level that was already a long established norm in the ‘killing fields’ of the like of the Chicago stock yards as was depicted in Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’. In that capitalist environment it was (and is?) difficult to work out who was the more abused, the animals or the human workers.

Whether that situation would have arisen even if revisionism and the restoration of capitalism had not occurred in the Soviet Union is a moot point. Whatever the future might have been the past of a gentile relationship between man and animal is still preserved in the bas reliefs on the building close by the Valea Morilor Lake in Chișinău.

These images also tell the history of the country, in that those agricultural products that were important in the country in the 1960s/70s (when I assume the bas reliefs were produced) are there on the wall – the grapes (for the wine), the sunflowers (for the oil), the maize (for the cobs) and wheat (for the flour).

Somewhat surprising (to me) is the lack of a significant reference to industry. The unique representation is in a male with spanner. No mechanisation, no tractor/combine harvester in the imagery, no indication that agricultural production was moving away from a situation of ‘idiocy of rural life’. This is not meant as a criticism of the skills of agricultural workers but of the fact that their working life had traditionally led them to an existence of isolation and a lack of organisation which was forced upon industrial workers with the development of factories and the concentration of hundreds (and thousands) of workers in a restricted area. They wouldn’t have chosen that move if given free will – they would have preferred working in a ‘cottage industry’ with their cow, pig and chickens on common land and a small vegetable patch – but that was stolen from working people by the first major privatisation of the modern age with the Enclosure Acts (where the rich stole from the poor in a blatant act of ‘legalised’ theft).

So these public works of art told a part of the history of the common people in Socialist societies. When they were/are obliterated in a purge of the past because capitalism doesn’t want the working class to even remember what the construction of Socialism (with the potential to lead to Communism) had meant to their lives then they will just accept the ‘norm’ that capitalism offers – to stay in your place, to accept what is given and allow the billionaires to rake in unbelievable amounts of wealth whilst the poor get poorer and as their ranks are increased.

That is why the images of Socialist Realism are being destroyed and, in an attempt to combat that revision of history, why that imagery that remains is being documented on the pages of this blog.

If you head to the lakeside to see these bas reliefs then you cannot but avoid also visiting the tableau of the three outstanding Communists – Karl Marx, VI Lenin and Georgi Dimitrov.

Location;

Strada Ghioceilor 1, Chișinău,

By the Moldexpo International Exhibitions Centre and at the edge of the Valea Morilor Lake.

GPS;

47.01631 N

28.80432 E

Socialist Realist Art in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Posted on 15/08/2025 by Michael

The daughter of Soviet Kirghizia – SA Chukov

Socialist Realist Art in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Introduction

It’s not just the manner in which public statues and monuments are treated that tells you a lot about a particular post-Soviet, post-Socialist society but how they choose to tell the story of the past in their art galleries. Art galleries were constructed in all towns and cities in Socialist societies, showcasing the work of local and national artists. Although all art from the past tells a political story (although then and now such a connection to politics is denied – ‘art for art’s sake’) in Socialist societies the importance of art (in all its forms) in the construction of Socialism was stated explicitly.

In all the countries that started along the road of the construction of Socialism in the 20th century the vast majority of the people would never have had the opportunity to view any of the art works that had been accumulated by the aristocracy and the wealthy – even in those ‘public’ art galleries that did exist. Even though the Hermitage Museum was open to the ‘public’ in 1852 few workers from the steel mills, sailors from the Imperial Fleet or any peasant who had reason to be in Saint Petersburg pre-1917 would have walked along such ‘hallowed’ corridors.

But as statues and monuments from the early 1990s started to disappear from the streets of those once Socialist countries so did paintings and sculptures (gradually in some places more rapidly in others) from the art galleries. Sometimes cloaked as a normal reorganisation of the collection what happened was that paintings which made an overt reference to leaders from the Socialist past or sculptures of those leaders were removed to be replaced with … what? The problem was that if the curators didn’t want to have bare walls they had to have some of those images from the Socialist period – or the galleries would just have to shut down.

It was ‘easier’ to replace public statues with something new but it also became problematic. Lenin and Stalin were deposed in Tirana to be replaced by the fascist, collaborator and self-proclaimed monarch, Zog – as well as some other ‘monuments’ . In Moscow the statues of Soviet leaders were placed in a museum park across the river from what must be one of the greatest monstrosities to be placed in the open air, that is the huge mess which is the monument to Peter the ‘Great’. In Tbilisi VI Lenin was replaced by a character from mythology, Saint George slaying a dragon. In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan gaudy statues of feudal lords now ‘adorn’ squares and public spaces once occupied by Soviet leaders.

What all these replacements have in common is a separation from the working class. They bear no relationship to their daily struggles and these images only reaffirm their subservience to the capitalist ruling order.

When it comes to art galleries it’s not too easy to fill the empty places and many locations in post-Socialist societies still display (often the less ‘controversial’) examples from the period on their walls.

Below are details about the galleries and examples of the art on show at three art galleries in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Regional Art Museum – Atyrau – Kazakhstan

Atyrau Art gallery

This is a small art gallery, of just two storeys, with the collection of Soviet era paintings and sculptures on the first floor. It doesn’t seem to get many visitors and was very quiet on my visit. For those interested in other aspects of Kazakh culture the Regional Museum is just across the road.

Amongst the collection are still some overtly political paintings and prints. However, I am unable to include these in the slide show as I was prevented from taking pictures half way through my visit. I had only been in the country a short time and wasn’t aware that trying to take pictures with anything other than a mobile phone will get you jumped on.

Location;

11 Azattyk Avenue, which is a side street off the main road close to the Central Bridge over the ural River, on the ‘Asian’ side.

GPS;

47.10632 N

51.92281 E

Opening Hours;

Monday – Friday; 09.00 – 19.00

Saturday and Sunday; 10.00 – 19.00

Closed between 13.00 and 14.00

Entrance;

1000 Tenge (£1.40)

Kasteyev State Arts Museum – Almaty – Kazakhstan

Museum of Art – Almaty

This is a large art gallery in the city that used to be the country’s capital before that ‘honour’ being claimed by the monstrosity which is Astana. The collection covers many aspects of Kazakh art other than paintings and sculptures from the Socialist era with displays of what are normally classified as folk art. However, the slide show only includes work produced pre-1990. Of particular note, and somewhat unusual in such collections of Socialist Realist art, is the two paintings that depict a) the ‘tradition’ of bride kidnapping, which was fought against under Socialism but which has seemingly managed to be revived in the last 35 years and is still a scourge of Kazakh society, especially in the rural areas and b) the sad image of a young woman who is the victim of an arranged marriage.

Location;

Koktem-3 microdistrict, 22/1

GPS;

43.23603 N

76.91931 E

Opening times;

Tuesday – Sunday; 10.00 – 18.00

Closed Monday

Entrance;

500 Tenge (£0.70)

Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts – Bishkek – Kyrgyzstan

The Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts in Bishkek

This is another art gallery that displays much more than the art from the Socialist period. One picture to look out for (and which will be recognised by any readers who have an interest in Soviet Socialist Realist Art) is ‘The daughter of Soviet Kirghizia’ by SA Chuykov. This is the artist’s reproduction of the original which is in the New Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

Location;

196 Yusup Abdrakhmanov Street

GPS;

42.87893 N

74.61082 E

Opening times;

Every day (apart from Monday when closed); 11.00 – 18.00

Entrance;

Free

Kazakhskiy University – Almaty – Socialist bas reliefs

Posted on 06/07/2025 by Michael

Kazakhskiy University – Almaty

Kazakhskiy University – Almaty – Socialist bas reliefs

This is a (relatively) unique example of Soviet art in Kazakhstan for a number of unrelated reasons;

this was the only such example that I came across in my travels in the summer of 2025, not just in Kazakhstan but in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan;

it has obviously been looked after and any repainting and renovation has been carried out with care and consideration;

it is unusual that in the images on both sides of the entrance to the building it is the women who are playing the leading role – it’s normally shared by the genders;

the Hammer and Sickle is in a central and therefore important location but it is depicted in a form that is unusual (although not, I think, unique as I am sure I’ve seen such a representation but – unfortunately – can’t remember where). Here, in place of the shaft of the hammer crossing the blade of the sickle, the back edge of the sickle rests on the head of the hammer and its shaft touches the tip of the sickle’s blade. I cannot think of a reason for this inversion of the hammer, especially as this is at the entrance of an educational establishment. However, the laurel leaves (representing achievement and success) cradle the symbol of the agricultural and industrial workers;

both the women are striving high in their respective endeavours. The one holding the flaming torch (the flame of which is painted red) is promoting – and striving for – technology, knowledge and civilisation, but here a civilisation based on a newer and finer ethic, that of Socialism and internationalism. The woman stretching to her utmost so that her book is as high as possible represents learning, literacy (an always primary goal of any society with a Socialist aspiration) and the acquisition of knowledge in general.

These images are now at the edge of a much bigger educational complex than it would have been in the immediate pre-Great Patriotic War period but it is good to see that there are some people in a position of authority to ensure that this important aspect of Kazakh history and culture is preserved and respected.

The black plaque notes that this was the Kazakh State Institute of Foreign Languages, 1938-1940. I assume that was the period it took to build the complex as the Soviet Union always – even in its revisionist manifestation – placed great importance on the country having people with an excellent understanding of many of the world’s languages.

The gold plaque states that the building was completed and opened on 1st September 1941.

This is now quite a large complex but the learning, and teaching, of foreign languages does not seem to have the same importance in capitalist Kazakhstan as it did in the Soviet Union. Presently the building is used for a whole variety of subjects – including the ubiquitous business/management’ courses (which will lead students into debt and then into a dead end ‘start-up’, in the vast majority of circumstances).