Central Pavilion – Tretyakov Gallery Exhibition – VDNKh – Moscow

Posted on 10/05/2025 by Michael

Pavilion No 1 and Lenin statue

Central Pavilion – Tretyakov Gallery Exhibition – VDNKh

The principal pavilion in the VDNKh park has undergone a major renovation and it has been brought back (almost) to what it was like when it opened in 1954. Some of the original works have been ‘lost’ – perhaps only mislaid as a number of art works considered ‘lost’ have subsequently been found – but a number that had been distributed to other galleries have been returned.

Although it has received a fine renovation it will never be the building as it was designed. The internal decoration, and even the naming of the various halls, was all connected to the success of the October Revolution and the construction of Socialism. That has not been created with the renovation and, in many ways, feels sterile. It is, not as it was originally, a celebration of the achievements of the Soviet people, now just an art gallery providing a few reminders of what once was.

The two slide shows at the end of the post will, it is hoped, provide some idea of what it is like to be in the building. The first is of the structure and the artistic items in the building. The second is of the high relief composition created by Yevgeny Vuchetich, who also created, amongst many more, the statue of The Motherland Calls! (in Stalingrad), ‘Let us beat swords into ploughshares’ (a version of which is outside the main entrance to the New Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow), and the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky (which used to stand in the square outside the Lubyanka Building and now is on display in Park Muzeon, alongside the New Tretyakov Gallery).

Text below from ‘Legendary pavilion and birthday arches. Exploring iconic VDNKh attractions to mark exhibition’s 85th anniversary’

This year (2024), Pavilion No. 1 Central, one of the most monumental exhibition buildings, is also celebrating its 70th anniversary. It rises 97 meters above the ground and immediately amazes visitors with its grandeur.

Designed by architects Georgy Shchuko and Evgeny Stolyarov, the building was erected in 1950–1954 to replace the previous wooden structure. It did not fit into the new VDNKh architectural composition in the 1950s, so it was redesigned. Inspired by the Stalinist architecture, the new pavilion has got a spire with a star on top and the USSR coat of arms and 16 medallions featuring the coats of arms of the union republics on the façades on each side. Until 1963, the pavilion was called the Main Pavilion.

Its history lives in the building’s exterior and interior. The pavilion has nine thematic halls: one central hall and eight exhibition halls connected to it. During construction, all rooms were covered with artificial marble and decorated with pieces of art. The October Revolution Hall features ‘The Storming of the Winter Palace’ (1950s) by the artist Pavel Sokolov-Skalya, while the Constitution Hall houses four panels by different artists dedicated to the happy life of Soviet citizens. Only two of the four paintings have survived to this day.

The Storming of the Winter Palace

In the 1990s, the exhibition halls were divided into two floors by mezzanines, and the entire pavilion space was packed with kiosks. In 2000, they opened a cultural centre, the House of the Peoples of Russia, with a museum. The exhibitions were housed in the building until 2014. In the same year, the pavilion kiosks were being removed. At that time, the experts discovered a plaster high relief ‘Glory to the Standard Bearer of Peace, the Soviet People!’, a great work by the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, on the wall in the Hall of the Victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. The work had been considered irretrievably lost for 40 years. It took about a year to restore it to its former grandeur. The lost fragments have been recreated using old photographs. The 90 square meter high relief depicts more than 1,500 people, life-size figures of workers, scientists and pioneers.

Glory to the Standard Bearer of Peace, the Soviet People!

In September 2014, experts made another discovery. On the basement floor of the building, experts discovered a painting entitled ‘The Second All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers and Shock Workers of 1935’, which was also considered lost. It is another monumental work: the canvas size is 6.75 X 11 meters. The painting was created by a group of artists led by Aleksandr Gerasimov in 1953. Other discoveries include a 1958 fresco depicting agricultural work.

In 2017, the work started to restore Pavilion No. 1 Central. The specialists have repaired the spire and the golden star crowning it, tinted the capitals, the coats of arms and ribbons on the façade to make them look like gold, and restored the original doors. They have also carried out a large-scale work inside the pavilion. In the central hall, they have discovered and cleared decorative semicircular arches hidden under a layer of plaster for more than 40 years. The experts have restored the ceiling lights, the columns made of scagliola and the parquet floors.

Text below from ‘The unknown Tsentralny: secrets of VDNKh Pavilion No.1’

On the right side of the October Revolution Hall, there is another painting by Pavel Sokolov-Skalya. It is called ‘Lenin Proclaims Soviet Power at the 2nd Congress of the Soviets’. It also returned to its original spot. The painting shows factory workers listening intently to the Soviet leader. Some of them applaud, others look up in surprise, as if asking, ‘Could that all be true?’ Lenin is not in the centre of the painting, but everyone is looking at him. That was the painter’s way of showing that Lenin was indeed the main person there.

Lenin Proclaims Soviet Power at the 2nd Congress of the Soviets

……

We move to the Stalin’s Constitution Hall made in pastel colors: cream and blue. It has a caisson-embossed dome with a gold star in the middle. The hall is dedicated to the happy future that revolutionaries were fighting for and that is already here.

Under the dome, along it circumference, the first lines of the Soviet anthem are written in gold: ‘United forever in friendship and labour, Our mighty republics will ever endure’. Below it are coats of arms of the 16 Soviet republics, including the Karelo-Finnish republic that still existed in 1950s.

There used to be painted panels depicting happy lives of Soviet citizens at the four sides of the hall. Only two of them survived. The first one, made by artists’ collective led by Alexander Gerasimov, shows students of all nationalities leaving Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) at Leninskiye (now Vorobyovy) Gory with books and briefcases and walking as if toward the audience, engaged in lively discussion among themselves. The high-rise University building was finished in 1953, one year before Pavilion No.1 opened to the public, and was instantly captured on the painting. It is like the people on it are alive and about to step down from the wall.

Moscow University

On the second panel by Sergey Otroshchenko smiling girls in colorful dresses and men in white linen or striped beach suits (fashionable at the time) are strolling along the Black Sea shore, among cypress trees and palaces with white colonnades.

On the Black Sea

The paintings explain the rights that Stalin’s Constitution of 1936 granted to Soviet citizens. It was considered the most progressive one in the world. It established rights to work, rest, education, etc.

Copies of the two panels that have been lost can be found on information displays. One of them, by Alexander Gerasimov, shows the launch of the Volga-Don canal: Soviet workers greet the first boat passing under the Triumph Arch surrounded by boundless fields that have to be tended and sowed. The other one, by Stepan Kirichenko, is called The Supreme Soviet Deputies in the Kremlin. On it, a crowd of men and women talk solemnly to each other while the background shows Ivan the Great’s bell tower and a Stalin era high-rise: symbols of the past and the present.

Next in our tour is the hall dedicated to Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War and the struggle for peace. There, we come to a high-relief sculpture group made of gypsum and painted bronze: Glory to the Soviet People, Flag-Bearer of Peace! It was made by Evgeny Vuchetich and his team of sculptors. It was covered by a faux wall in the 1960s, and simply bricked over later.

Glory to the Standard Bearer of Peace

So restoration architects got a surprise. Life-sized figures: workers, scientists, young pioneers, seem to descend to the audience from a Stalin-era high-rise building, a water power station, the Shukhov tower, main landmarks of that time.

When they found it, sculptures were in a sad state, many pieces had been damaged. They had to be recreated based on old photographs. We think now that those characters were modelled after real people. For instance, the Uzbek man on the right, wearing a national robe and a skullcap is Nazarali Niyazov, Hero of Socialist Labour. He invented a new cotton field irrigation method. Vuchetich had made a chest-high sculpture of him before the high relief project commenced and later used that as a base for a full-height sculpture.

This version of the sculpture is different from the one created in 1954. Back then, there used to be portraits of Lenin, Stalin, Marx and Engels on the flag; after the de-Stalinization, however, only Lenin’s profile was left. The man and the woman up front used to hold the USSR coat of arms which was later replaced by a baby holding a dove, the symbol of peace. Specialists decided to restore the later variant.

……

In the hall known as Collective Farms, Soviet Farms — MTS, restoration artists were able to uncover a painting niche framed in creamy-white bas-reliefs: cabbages, corncobs, apples, bunches of grapes, apricots, other vegetables and fruits around the edges with cows, horses and sheep in the middle and farming machinery on top. Such bas-reliefs, probably used to decorate other walls as well, but were lost.

Dairy and Meat Farming in the USSR, a painting by Boris Shcherbakov, returned to that room after being restored. The oil-on-canvas painting depicts a herd of cattle grazing by the river, surrounded by milkmaids and farmers, barns and power lines. On top of it, there is now a recreated slogan that used to be there in 1958: ‘We will catch up to the USA in per capita production of meat, milk and butter in the coming years’.

Dairy and Meat Farming in the USSR

Shcherbakov painted it for the Tsentralny Pavilion, but it was moved to the Equestrian Manege Pavilion in the 1960s’.

There is another farming-themed panel by unknown painter on the wall there. It is a map of the USSR machine and tractor stations (MTSs) with landscapes, fields and combine harvesters in the corners.

Machine and tractor station

The map was later replaced with a more modern electronic one where lights were going on.

The electronic parts of the map were lost, so they just left the outline of the USSR on the panel.

The initial plan was to put the giant painting by Alexander Gerasimov, called ‘Stalin Pronounces the Union-Wide Agricultural Exhibition Open at the 2nd Congress of Kolkhoz Workers and Exceptional Employees’, up there. The painting is currently being restored.

That painting is important for our history. The Union-Wide Agricultural Exhibition was established after the Congress, in 1939, and new pavilions were built. But the audience has never seen the painting because it was removed right after Stalin’s death, before the pavilion opened. People believed it was lost. But in 2014, it was discovered in the basement, wrapped around a roller. Now it is undergoing a restoration’

Location;

In the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (VDNKh)

GPS;

55.82895 N

37.63349 E

How to get there;

The easiest way to get to the park is via the Metro, to the VDNKh station on Line 6. The Central Pavilion is the highest structure in the park and is the first (permanent) building you see once you walk through the main arch.

Cost;

500 roubles

More on the USSR

The interior of the Central Pavilion

‘Glory to the standard bearer of peace’

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo, Georgia

Posted on 10/08/2024 by Michael

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 06

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo, Georgia

Tskaltubo’s a strange place. The village itself is, to say the least, nondescript and if it had any purpose at all in the past it was to serve the resort hotels and spa complexes which were built on top of the hot springs and the (foul-smelling) curative mud.

All the hotels and spas are either close to or inside a huge park that is (very roughly) 2 kilometres long and about 500 metres wide (at it’s greatest) with a north-south orientation. When this place was at its busiest there must have been thousands of people here and would have resembled the holiday resorts on the Costas in Spain. Walking around the, now mostly abandoned, hotels you come across corridors going off corridors with rooms on either side. Although all of them have large restaurants they would have been unable to cope with all the residents at the same time so there must have been a very strict and organised rota at meal times.

In a previous post, Tskaltubo’s abandoned Spas, Springs and Sanatoria, I attempted to give the background of this area and a feeling of the abandoned faculties which would have had many happy memories, I’m sure, for thousands of Soviet citizens.

Information is somewhat contradictory but what is almost certain is that the heyday of the area would have been from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s – and I imagine the crash would have been as sudden as the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. The whole infrastructure which would have moved so many people back and forth from the Soviet Union to Georgia would have fallen apart; the people had too much of an uncertain future to consider going on holiday; money quickly became scarce; and Georgian nationalists would not have been that welcoming when they saw the weakness of the once powerful Socialist entity.

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 01

But if citizens from the rest of the Soviet Union lost a favoured holiday destination the Georgians didn’t benefit. Many of them would have lost their jobs overnight. And this wouldn’t have been just those who worked directly in contact with the visitors in the hotels and the spa complexes. A whole host of ancillary jobs would have gone as well in the greater Kutaisi area.

For example, there used to be a railway station (close to which is now the Tourist Information Office) and at the bottom of the park, on the exit road leading to Kutaisi, there was a not insignificant hospital. The latter would have served not only the visitors (with so many statistically there would have been a number of accidents and emergencies) but those locals who worked in the resort, many of whom I imagine lived in the apartment blocks and houses to the east of the main road to Kutaisi.

Recently there’s been renovation of some of the spas (especially Spring No. 6, which houses Stalin’s ‘private bath house’) but many of the accommodation blocks have been (partly) taken over by refugees from Abkhazia, who are living in disgusting slums. Although I’m sure that few in the Georgian government care about these refugees they will probably be ‘safe’ in their squatter status as there’s no way that the area will ever return to it’s illustrious past and there will never be enough money to return all the resort hotels to their former glory.

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 02

However, there has been major investment to restore (at least in part) probably one of the biggest hotels, if not in the number of bedrooms at least with its surrounding grounds. This is now called the Legends Spa Resort and is located to the east of the park, half way from the entrance to the resort area on the way to the village of Tskaltubo.

At the height of its popularity this must have been one of the most impressive complexes in the area. The three accommodation buildings of the complex are set along its own private road, quite high above the public road that passes on the way to the village of Tskaltubo, and is reached via two portico entrances from which wide steps lead up to a viewpoint. The trees here are now very much established but forty or so years ago, from these vantage points, the visitors would have been able to look across to the park and a walk from the hotel to the park, or even the spas, would have been a common activity for the visitors.

Although in its prime there would have been on site spa/health facilities these have still yet to be completed (if ever) and those present day visitors on an accommodation and health package get bussed to one of the restored spas in the area of the park, a few minutes away.

Of the three buildings only one has had any substantial work carried out to bring it up to present day standards (and expectations) to open as a hotel – and that only partially – and is the only building currently in use. This is the northern most of the three which has an interesting Socialist Realist bas relief frieze above the front door. I’ve read various articles suggesting that the renovation of the rest of this building is some time in the distant future.

One of the other two buildings (the one with statues above the main entrance) appears to have had some work carried out in the relatively recent past, although it definitely looked like a budget option – but this looks as if it hasn’t been used for some time. The third looked as if it had not been touched at all since the last Soviet visitor left and although not in the best of condition – and difficult to see clearly due to the sprawling vegetation – it also has a Socialist Realist frieze on the façade.

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 05

Only very few people were staying there when I visited at the very beginning of June 2024 but I got the impression that large groups would arrive from time to time so perhaps my stay wasn’t indicative of the occupation levels – and anyway it was still relatively early in the summer season.

Having walked around derelict and completely uninhabitable (although some people are forced to live there as they have nowhere else) ex-hotel buildings in other parts of Tskaltubo it was interesting to see what these places were like when they were such a popular destination for Soviet workers. But, as stated above, not all of this particular hotel has been fully restored – so dereliction was only just (literally) around the corner. Go up one staircase and everything is what you would expect in such a hotel but go up another and you see what a lot of work is needed to bring the whole building up to scratch.

A picture paints a thousand words so it is hoped that the slide show will provide a better idea of the whole of the complex. Here I just want to point out a few aspects which stuck out in my mind as I explored all the (sometimes) dark and dusty corridors. For someone who wants to get an idea of the place the fact that there was no restriction on where you could go was quite refreshing, so-called ‘health and safety’ – often used as an excuse to prohibit access – gone mad certainly in the UK (if not other countries in Western Europe).

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 04

In no particular order;

the many rooms which had been renovated but not kept immediately ready for guests but would be sorted very rapidly if a big group was to book in;
the stacks of old spa baths, very dated in their design, which had been taken out of the hotel’s own spa area but the new baths had not yet (in the summer of 2024) been fully plumbed in and the work to do so seemingly frozen for whatever reason;
the covered walkway, with metal-framed windows on either side, now (and probably originally) lines with potted plants that joined the accommodation area with the dining and entertainment area of the complex;
the large circular dining room which wasn’t in use when I was there but looking as if it wouldn’t take too much to get it ready;
the circular cinema/theatre which downstairs looked as if it could be ready for a performance at any time but in the balcony the chairs were dirty and many of them broken or missing with the walls flaking;
the light fittings that were very reminiscent of the Moscow Metro. Whereas western metros and underground systems are industrial spaces that of the Soviet transport system was ‘domestic’, there being light fittings that you would find in other public buildings in the country, which included chandeliers, all which provides a softer lighting as opposed to the harsh, functional fluorescent strips which are the norm in the west;
the cinema projection room which still houses two, late 20th century 35mm projectors, one of which still had a reel of film in place. Although not very tidy and with a few things having been taken for use elsewhere you could still imagine (with a fair stretch of the imagination) that a film could be shown tonight;

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 03

the ‘museum’ – which is really only a higgledy-piggledy collection of items which no one could find a present day use for but didn’t want to throw them in the skip. This includes a bust of Karl Marx and one of VI Lenin, as well as some old health awareness posters and a 1980s ‘sound system’ amongst other nick-knacks. This all in what was a small café/bar in the latter days of the Soviet resort;

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 07

a frieze depicting industrial workers and those in working in the countryside, as well as ‘intellectuals’ necessary for the construction of Socialism – the workers of hand and brain. The frieze above the entrance of the first building – that which is in constant use – in a very good, and restored, condition. The one over building three – the building that doesn’t seemed to have received any renovation of any kind since the building was closed – needing a bit of loving care but still in a good enough condition that you can make out the story;
remnants of the 1980s in terms of furniture, curtains, pianos, light fittings, etc. All the renovation seems to have attempted to recreate the ambiance of the past where possible;
‘Stalin’s suite’ – which is located on the first floor of the third (the least ‘luxurious’) building. As stated above there doesn’t seem to have been any work carried out in this building and for that reason is the most derelict. That is, apart from a small area on the first floor on the west side of the building. This is a small suite comprising of; a sitting room; a bedroom; a small office and a bathroom. Obviously Uncle Joe wasn’t into cooking as there are no facilities for such. This is said to have been Stalin’s residence of choice. Now whether this is true or not I cannot say. I’ve also read about a villa on the other side of the park that Stalin was supposed to have used when visiting Tskaltubo. But if we assume that it is true then what this demonstrates is how humble and undemanding a personage Comrade Stalin was. NO capitalist leader at the same time that he was the leader of the Soviet Union would have stayed in such humble circumstances – even less so now. And as with his ‘private bath house’ in Spring No. 6 it just goes to show what an unassuming man he was – a true leader of the working class.

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 08

Another thought I had when walking around this complex just reinforced what I was thinking when I first visited Tskaltubo. Yes, many of the buildings, both the hotels and hot springs/spas are ruins but that was due to neglect and not mindless vandalism. In various parts of this complex you get the impression that one day everyone just up and left – some being careless and not shutting the doors or windows. Come the winter or the rainy season the elements stared to make an impact and some of the wooden parquet floors were damaged. As there was no regular maintenance being carried out that meant that, over time, water started to get in through breaks in gutters or leaks in roofs thereby causing damage to ceilings and walls and wooden window frames started to rot. Lack of regular maintenance also meant that the exterior stonework started to stain and crumble.

Although there must have been some element of looting it wasn’t complete and although it might have caused long lasting damage in some circumstances it certainly wasn’t general. This was very different from what happened when things fell apart in Albania. In that country there was wholesale destruction and whereas, at least, some of the buildings in Tskaltubo could be brought back into use you can say that about remarkably few in Albania.

Whether by commission or omission I still feel that the people’s of the once Socialist Republics ended up throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Location;

Rustaveli St 23, Tskaltubo

GPS;

42.321194º N

42.604205º E

Website;

Legends Tskaltubo Spa Resort

Park of the Fallen/Muzeon Art Park, Moscow

Posted on 07/05/2024 by Michael

Soviet emblem

More on the USSR

Park of the Fallen/Muzeon Art Park

Presented in the slide show below are images taken of some of those monuments and statues produced during the period of the construction of Socialism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Construction worker

With the victory of reaction against the (admittedly weak and already corrupted revisionist) Socialist state in the 1990s many of these monuments and statues were removed from public spaces and many were left to rot. However, a re-assessment of the role of Socialist leaders of the past and with a mix of opportunism from the ruling capitalists that they could easily create another tourist attraction in the city led to the re-erection of these statues in the vicinity of the modern art gallery – which also displays art produced during the Socialist period.

The works presented here were produced over a period of about 50 years, representing the thinking of the revolutionary period as well as the period of revisionism and capitalist restoration. Those later works are included as they still represented a glimmer of the hope for a new future.

Included at images of VI Lenin, JV Stalin, Karl Marx, MI Kalinin and FE Dzerzhinsky, as well as Heroes of the Soviet Union.

Swords into ploughshares

Why some of these art works were considered controversial is difficult to understand. The Soviet leaders were the enemies of the new capitalist rulers so their removal can be understood. But why the references to peace or the statue of the female construction worker? Presumably it wasn’t what they are but the society that produced them and what they continue to represent.

Peace

The main concentration of the socialist art works are concentrated around the large metal emblem of the Soviet Union, in an area north west of the New Tretyakov Gallery. More contemporary sculptures are displayed in other parts of the park.

Related;

Socialist Realist Art in Albania

Museum of Socialist Art – Sofia, Bulgaria

Remnants of religious thinking in Albanian Socialist Art

The ‘Archive’ Exhibition at the Tirana Art Gallery

Socialist Realist Paintings and Sculptures in the National Art Gallery, Tirana

New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Related – other statues of revolutionaries in Moscow

Ernst Thälmann – German Communist leader – statue in Moscow

Karl Marx monument, Moscow

Ho Chi Minh monument

Frederick Engels statue

Location;

In Muzeon Art Park, in which is also located the New Tretyakov Art Gallery (the gallery of 20th century Russian art).

How to get there;

The park is across the bridge over the River Moskva from the Park Kultury metro station and beside the main road that leads past the Oktyabrskaya metro station in the direction of the river. The main entrance to Muzeon Art Park is directly opposite the main entrance to Gorky Park.