When was the monument to a worker and a collective farmer erected? "Worker and Collective Farm Woman"
The most famous work of the Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina is the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”.
It was called a symbol of the Soviet era and a standard of socialist realism, although at one time the sculpture was almost rejected due to the fact that in the folds of a peasant woman’s dress someone saw the silhouette of the enemy of the people Leonid Trotsky... 
Project of the Soviet pavilion by architect B. Iofan
In 1936, the USSR was preparing to participate in the World Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Paris. Architect Boris Iofan proposed making the Soviet pavilion in the form of a springboard, dynamically directed upward, with a sculpture on the roof.
Boris Iofan explained his idea this way:
“In the idea that I had, the Soviet pavilion was depicted as a triumphal building, reflecting in its dynamics the rapid growth of the achievements of the world’s first socialist state, the enthusiasm and cheerfulness of our great era of building socialism... So that any person, at the first glance at our pavilion, would feel that this is the pavilion of the Soviet Union... The sculpture seemed to me to be made of light, light metal, as if flying forward, like the unforgettable Louvre Nike - a winged victory.” 
Soviet pavilion at an exhibition in Paris, 1937 
The exposition itself was rather sparse; in fact, the pavilion was the main exhibit. The worker and the collective farmer personified the owners of the Soviet land - the proletariat and the peasantry. Iofan’s idea for the composition was inspired by the antique statue “Tyran Slayers”.
The combination of a sickle and a hammer is also not the invention of Iofan and Mukhina; this idea has already been embodied in the works of some artists. The architect developed the general project, and the sculptor had to find its specific solution. 
On the left are the Tyrant Slayers. V century BC e. On the right is a sculpture of Vera Mukhina *Worker and Collective Farm Woman*
In the summer of 1936, a competition was announced among sculptors, at which V. Andreev, M. Manizer, I. Shadr and V. Mukhina presented their projects. Mukhina’s main discovery was the apparent lightness and airiness of the massive sculpture, which was achieved thanks to the matter “flying” behind the figures.
“A lot of controversy was aroused by the piece of material I introduced into the composition, fluttering from behind, symbolizing those red banners, without which we cannot imagine any mass demonstration. This “scarf” was so necessary that without it the entire composition and connection of the statue with the building would fall apart,” said Mukhina.
Her project was approved, with the condition that she “dress” the figures, which were originally intended to be naked. 
Sculpture projects by V. Andreev and M. Manizer 
Plaster model by B. Iofan and sculpture project by V. Mukhina
At the beginning of 1937, from the factory where the assembly took place, a denunciation was received against Mukhina, which stated that the work could not be completed on time, since the sculptor constantly interrupted work and required corrections, and in some places the steel shell of the frame was clearly the profile of the enemy of the people L. Trotsky is visible.
Then they did not respond to the denunciation, but upon returning from the exhibition, the commissar of the Soviet pavilion I. Mezhlauk and several engineers who worked on the creation of the statue were arrested. 
Vera Mukhina in the studio, 1940s. 
On the left is the assembly of the statue at the pilot plant. On the right is the assembled sculpture
The dimensions of the statue were impressive: it reached a height of 23.5 meters and weighed 75 tons. To transport it to the exhibition, the sculpture was cut into 65 pieces and loaded onto 28 platforms. After its assembly in Paris, the statue created a real sensation.
The French graphic artist F. Maserel admitted: “Your sculpture amazed us. We spend whole evenings talking and arguing about it.” Picasso admired the way stainless steel looked against the lilac Parisian sky. 
Statue assembly process
Romain Rolland wrote: “At the International Exhibition, on the banks of the Seine, two young Soviet giants raise the hammer and sickle, and we hear the heroic anthem flowing from their chests, which calls the peoples to freedom, to unity and will lead them to victory.” 
Working model of the sculpture 
After the end of the exhibition, the sculpture was again dismantled and transported to Moscow. There it was restored from thick sheets of steel and installed on a much lower pedestal in front of the entrance to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. 
In 1947, the statue “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” became the symbol of the Mosfilm film studio. And Vera Mukhina deservedly received the unofficial title of the first lady of Soviet monumental sculpture.
2014 marked the 125th anniversary of the birth of the great Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina. Her name is known to every person living in the post-Soviet space, because it is inextricably linked with the artist’s monumental creation - the sculptural composition “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”.
Biography of Vera Mukhina
Vera Ignatievna was born in 1889 into a wealthy merchant family. She lost her parents very early and was raised by guardians. From childhood, Vera was distinguished by perseverance and perseverance. Her passion for painting gradually developed into a craft, which she studied for two years in Paris at the Grande Chaumiere Academy. The girl's teacher was the famous sculptor Bourdelle. Then Mukhina moved to Italy, where she studied painting and sculpture by the masters of the Renaissance period.
During the First World War, Mukhina worked as a nurse in a hospital. It was there that her first meeting took place with the surgeon Alexei Andreevich Zamkov, with whom she was soon married. The non-proletarian origin of the family often endangered the lives of its members. Mukhina's active participation in the country's revolutionary changes was reflected in her sculptural compositions. Mukhina's heroes were distinguished by their power and life-affirming force.
Vera Ignatievna worked hard and hard all her life. Having lost her husband in 1942, she took this loss seriously. An unhealthy heart allowed Mukhina to live a little more than ten years after her husband left. In 1953, she died, not being an old woman at all - she was 64 years old.
How it all began
The selection committee, headed by the Soviet leader, approved the finished monument. At the next stage, the composition “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was supposed to go to Paris. For ease of transportation, the monument was divided into sixty-five parts and loaded onto a train. The total weight of the structure was 75 tons, of which only 12 tons were allocated to the steel cladding. Three dozen freight cars were used to transport the monument, tools and lifting mechanisms.
Rave reviews from Parisians
Unfortunately, there were some damages during transportation. During the installation work, the flaws were hastily eliminated, but exactly at the appointed hour, May 25, 1937, the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” shone in the Parisian sky. The delight of Parisians and exhibition participants knew no bounds.
The steel composition delighted with its beauty and splendor, shimmering in the sun's rays with all sorts of shades. The Eiffel Tower, located in close proximity to Soviet sculpture, was losing its grandeur and attractiveness.
The Soviet monument was awarded a gold medal - Grand Prix. Vera Mukhina, a modest and talented Soviet sculptor, could rightfully be proud of the result achieved. “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” immediately acquired the status of a symbol of the Soviet state in the eyes of the whole world.
At the end of the exhibition, the Soviet delegation received an offer from the French side to sell the sculptural composition. The leadership of the USSR, of course, refused.
The sculptural group “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” safely returned to their homeland and was soon installed in its permanent place of residence - in front of one of the entrances. Today, this territory belongs to one of the most visited places in Moscow by numerous residents and guests of the capital.
The author of the “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” monument, Vera Mukhina, did not approve of the installation location. And the height of the sculpture became lower due to the fact that the pedestal was reduced three times in size. Vera Ignatievna liked the area on the spit of the Moscow River more, where Tsereteli’s Peter the Great now stands. She also offered an observation deck on the Sparrow Hills. However, her opinion was not listened to
“Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” - a world-famous symbol of the Soviet era
Since the Paris Exhibition, the sculptural composition has become a national feature of the Soviet state, replicated throughout the world in the form of postage stamps, postcards, commemorative coins, and albums with reproductions. The image of the famous monument appeared in the form of numerous souvenirs and in its popularity could compete only with the Russian nesting doll. And since 1947, the Mosfilm film studio began to use the famous sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” in its screensavers, thereby establishing it as the emblem of the Soviet country.
Vera Mukhina - a recognized master of sculptural creativity
In gratitude, the Soviet government awarded Vera Mukhina the Stalin Prize. In addition, there were many more awards and various government benefits that the famous woman sculptor received. “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” made it possible for Mukhina to enjoy complete freedom in creative activity. But, to the great regret of his descendants, the legendary sculptor remained in memory only as the author of the only monument.
Located at the base of the pedestal of the famous sculpture, there are many photographic documents and newsreels, indicating that Vera Ignatievna worked hard and fruitfully. She painted paintings, created sculptural projects and glass compositions. The museum displays many sketch models of monuments that the famous female sculptor was never able to bring to life. “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” is not the only monument to Mukhina’s work in Moscow.
Other creations of Vera Mukhina
The hands of a talented creator were built in front of the Moscow Conservatory, as well as for Maxim Gorky at the Belorussky railway station. The author owns the sculptural compositions “Science”, “Bread”, “Fertility”.
Vera Mukhina took an active part in the work on the sculptural groups located on the Moskvoretsky Bridge. For her work, Vera Ignatievna was repeatedly awarded government orders, the highest Soviet prizes, and she was elected a member of the presidium of the Academy of Arts of the Soviet Union.
Along with creativity, Vera Mukhina was engaged in teaching. Later she began to actively work at the Leningrad plant, creating compositions from glass and porcelain as an author. “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” received significant damage over many years of standing in the open air.
The rebirth of a monumental monument
In 2003, a decision was made to reconstruct the famous sculpture. The monument was dismantled and, for ease of work, divided into many fragments. Restoration efforts lasted about six years. The internal frame of the structure was strengthened, and the steel frame was cleaned of dirt and treated with protective chemicals that could extend the service life of the monument. The updated sculptural composition was installed on a new high pedestal in December 2009. Now the monument is twice as tall as it was before.
Today, the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” is not only a symbol of the Soviet era, but a monumental creation of the talented author Vera Mukhina, recognized throughout the world. The monument is the hallmark of Moscow, a landmark visited annually by hundreds of thousands of tourists from all corners of the globe.
Anyone who has ever watched a movie shot at the Mosfilm studio is familiar with the symbol of this Soviet film studio. This is an article about the sculpture that has become this very symbol)
"Worker and Collective Farm Woman" is a sculptural group of two figures raising a hammer and sickle above their heads. It is made of stainless chromium-nickel steel. The height of the sculpture is about 25 m. The total weight is 80 tons. Author - V.I. Mukhina.
It was created for the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. The ideological concept of the sculpture belonged to the architect B. M. Iofan, who won the competition for the construction of the pavilion. While working on the competition project, the architect “very soon came up with an image... of a sculpture, a young man and a girl, personifying the owners of the Soviet land - the working class and the collective farm peasantry. They raise high the emblem of the Land of the Soviets - the hammer and sickle." A competition was announced for the sculpture and it was won by sculptor V.I. Mukhina.
Work on creating a huge monument was carried out using a one and a half meter plaster model created by Mukhina at the pilot plant of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Metalworking under the leadership of Professor P. N. Lvov.
When transporting a sculpture from Paris to Moscow "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" was damaged. In January-August 1939, the sculpture was reconstructed and installed on a pedestal in front of the Northern entrance to the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition Center (now the All-Russian Exhibition Center). Restored in 1979.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia called the sculpture “the standard of socialist realism.”
In 2003, the monument was dismantled into 40 fragments. Then they intended to restore it and return it to its place at the end of 2005, however, due to problems with financing, the sculpture remained in a disassembled state.
The sculpture is currently being assembled. The reinstallation of the monument in place is planned for December 2009.
Sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" will be installed on a new pavilion-pedestal specially built for this purpose. Work on its construction began in April 2009. Currently, a pedestal and a pavilion for collecting sculptures have been built, and parts of the figures have been delivered.
July 1 marked the 127th anniversary of the birth of the Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina, whose most famous work is the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman.” It was called a symbol of the Soviet era and a standard of socialist realism, although at one time the sculpture was almost rejected due to the fact that in the folds of a peasant woman’s dress someone saw the silhouette of the enemy of the people Leonid Trotsky.
Project of the Soviet pavilion by architect B. Iofan
In 1936, the USSR was preparing to participate in the World Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Paris. Architect Boris Iofan proposed making the Soviet pavilion in the form of a springboard, dynamically directed upward, with a sculpture on the roof. Boris Iofan explained his idea this way: “In the plan that arose in me, the Soviet pavilion was depicted as a triumphal building, reflecting in its dynamics the rapid growth of the achievements of the world’s first socialist state, the enthusiasm and cheerfulness of our great era of building socialism... So that any person at the first glance at our pavilion I felt that this was the pavilion of the Soviet Union... The sculpture seemed to me to be made of light, light metal, as if flying forward, like the unforgettable Louvre Nike - a winged victory.”
Soviet pavilion at an exhibition in Paris, 1937
The exposition itself was rather sparse; in fact, the pavilion was the main exhibit. The worker and the collective farmer personified the owners of the Soviet land - the proletariat and the peasantry. Iofan’s idea for the composition was inspired by the antique statue “Tyran Slayers”. The combination of a sickle and a hammer is also not the invention of Iofan and Mukhina; this idea has already been embodied in the works of some artists. The architect developed the general project, and the sculptor had to find its specific solution.
On the left are the Tyrannoslayers. V century BC e. On the right is a sculpture of Vera Mukhina *Worker and Collective Farm Woman*
In the summer of 1936, a competition was announced among sculptors, at which V. Andreev, M. Manizer, I. Shadr and V. Mukhina presented their projects. Mukhina’s main discovery was the apparent lightness and airiness of the massive sculpture, which was achieved thanks to the matter “flying” behind the figures. “A lot of controversy was aroused by the piece of material I introduced into the composition, fluttering from behind, symbolizing those red banners, without which we cannot imagine any mass demonstration. This “scarf” was so necessary that without it the entire composition and connection of the statue with the building would fall apart,” said Mukhina. Her project was approved, with the condition that she “dress” the figures, which were originally intended to be naked.
Sculpture projects by V. Andreev and M. Manizer
Plaster model by B. Iofan and sculpture project by V. Mukhina
At the beginning of 1937, from the factory where the assembly took place, a denunciation was received against Mukhina, which stated that the work could not be completed on time, since the sculptor constantly interrupted work and required corrections, and in some places the steel shell of the frame was clearly the profile of the enemy of the people L. Trotsky is visible. Then they did not respond to the denunciation, but upon returning from the exhibition, the commissar of the Soviet pavilion I. Mezhlauk and several engineers who worked on the creation of the statue were arrested.
Vera Mukhina in the studio, 1940s.
On the left is the assembly of the statue at the pilot plant. On the right is the assembled sculpture
The dimensions of the statue were impressive: it reached a height of 23.5 meters and weighed 75 tons. To transport it to the exhibition, the sculpture was cut into 65 pieces and loaded onto 28 platforms. After its assembly in Paris, the statue created a real sensation. The French graphic artist F. Maserel admitted: “Your sculpture amazed us. We spend whole evenings talking and arguing about it.” Picasso admired the way stainless steel looked against the lilac Parisian sky.
Statue assembly process
Romain Rolland wrote: “At the International Exhibition, on the banks of the Seine, two young Soviet giants raise the hammer and sickle, and we hear the heroic anthem flowing from their chests, which calls the peoples to freedom, to unity and will lead them to victory.”
Working model of the sculpture
“Worker and Collective Farm Woman,” the unofficial emblem of the Soviet Union and, according to many critics, the greatest work of sculpture of the 20th century, has been under restoration for four years. Meanwhile, the square at the Northern entrance of VDNKh, where the monument has been located since 1938, will soon undergo dramatic changes - the famous Montreal Pavilion, symbolizing the TU-144 flying into the sky, will disappear, and a large one will appear in its place multifunctional center. The final decision on the location of the statue has not yet been made. Meanwhile, throughout the twentieth century, many options for its placement in different parts of the city were discussed. The materials published below were provided by the Research and Design Department “Protection of the Historical and Cultural Complex” of the State Unitary Enterprise NIIPI General Plan of Moscow.
The idea of crowning the Soviet pavilion of the Paris World Exhibition with a paired statue of “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” made of metal belongs to the architect B.M. Iofanu. Iofan, apparently drawing on the experience of creating the American Statue of Liberty, intended to make the sculpture from duralumin, because he imagined the statue in a light and light, but not shiny metal. Professor P.N. Lvov, a prominent specialist in metal and methods of its constructive use, convinced the architect to use stainless chromium-nickel steel, connected not using rivets (as was done in America), but by welding. The head of the famous sculpture “David” by Michelangelo was “knocked out” as a test, and this experiment turned out to be very successful, although, as Iofan notes, all the sculptors were skeptical about steel at first.
B. Iofan wrote that while working on the competition project, “very soon an image was born... of a sculpture, a young man and a girl, personifying the owners of the Soviet land - the working class and the collective farm peasantry. They raise high the emblem of the Land of the Soviets - the hammer and sickle." However, recently there have been allegations that the “poster” hand gesture with a certain emblem, even the images of a young man and a girl with a hammer and sickle - all this has already been played out many times in Soviet art. A. Strigalev claims that Iofan only “decisively turned to what was “in the air” - this was precisely the strength and persuasiveness of his plan.” Iofan’s secretary I.Yu. Eigel argued that Iofan’s creation of “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman” was inspired by the idea of the ancient statue “Tyranobusters,” depicting Critias and Nesiot standing next to swords in their hands.
In the summer of 1936, a closed competition was announced for a statue for the Paris Pavilion. V.A. was invited to participate in it. Andreev, M.G. Manizer, V.I. Mukhina, I.D. Shadr. For direct assistance in sculpting the statue, Vera Ignatievna invited two of her former students from Vkhutemas 3.G. Ivanov and N.G. Zelenskaya. The deadline for preparing competitive projects was given a short time - about three months.
Mukhina worked on the sketch for a short time, but very intensely. The objects of her search were the drapery and the position of the free hands of the worker and collective farmer. She tried to connect the free hands of a man and a woman “within” the group, and put the attributes of the worker in the right hand, and the collective farmer in the left, so that there was a rather significant spatial gap between the sickle and the hammer. She tried to move the draperies giving horizontal folds, located in Iofan’s sketch at the level of the characters’ feet, upward, depicting them in the form of a banner or banner immediately following the emblem, that is, at the level of the shoulders and heads of the worker and collective farmer.
Mukhina boldly changed the architectural concept in her project. She abandoned the static diagonal composition of the statue and, by introducing a flying scarf and thrown back arms, made this composition dynamic and horizontal; instead of a solid mass of stuck together figures, airiness appeared. In addition, Vera Ignatievna demanded a change in the size of the monument, replacing the original equal size of the statue and the building with the “golden ratio”. All these innovations, unexpected for the architect and the jury, for a long time prevented the final decision from being made. In a private conversation, exhibition commissioner I.I. Mezhlauk asked Mukhina to “dress” the statue, since according to Iofan’s original design the figures were naked. Also, according to rumors, strong objections were raised to the scarf, which had no “semantic” meaning. I had to make three versions of the statue: without a scarf, with a single scarf and with a forked scarf. Mukhina also did not agree with Iofanov’s concept of the character of the general image of the statue and even the entire pavilion.
B.M. Iofan conceived the Soviet pavilion as a “triumphal building.” IN AND. Mukhina wrote that “having received the pavilion design from the architect Iofan, I immediately felt that the group should express, first of all, not the solemn nature of the figures, but the dynamics of our era, that creative impulse that I see everywhere in our country and which is so dear to me "
This was a fundamental change from the architect's original plan. The fact that Iofan agreed with him speaks volumes. Mukhina not only more subtly and correctly grasped the general mood of the then Soviet society, but also more accurately and more broadly than the architect himself, she understood the character and potential figurative possibilities inherent in the architecture of the pavilion. It sharply strengthened the horizontal orientation of the group and the forward movement of the statue (in fact, it did not even strengthen it, but created this movement, only weakly outlined in Iofan’s project). Listing the changes she made, Vera Ignatievna wrote about this: “For greater strength of the mutual composition with the horizontal dynamics of the building, horizontal movement of the entire group and most of the sculptural volumes was introduced; An essential part of the composition was a large sheet of material flying behind the group and giving the necessary airiness of flight..."
The creation of this “flying matter” was the most significant departure from Iofan’s original sketch and at the same time one of Mukhina’s most remarkable discoveries. But initially the scarf had another, purely service role: draping certain parts of the body.
There was a little more than six months left before the statue was sent to Paris, and the project still had not been approved. Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars E.K. Antonov strongly objected to the scarf. Molotov did not like the model without a scarf, but he generally supported Antonov. Finally they asked: “What does the author think?” Vera Ignatievna said that a model without a scarf is simply no good. After a rather harsh discussion, Molotov said: “Well, let’s believe the author,” and the middle model with a lighter scarf was adopted. On November 11, 1936, V. Mukhina’s project was finally approved for execution in the material.
The work began at an insane pace: first, the creation of a statue of 1/15 life-size, and then its enlargement and conversion to steel at the TsNIIMASH plant. The 1/15 model was made at home, in Vera Ignatievna’s studio room, in which, despite the height of the ceilings (about 6 m), there was no overhead light, and she was very afraid of unaccounted angles and lighting effects. Therefore, she asked one of her former students, architect Boris Komarov, to organize a check of the daylighting of the statue. A small 1/100 model was painted with silver paint and taken to the Planetarium, where the position and height of the sun in Paris in relation to the orientation of the statue was simulated using a machine. After this, Vera Ignatievna calmed down a little. Since the statue had to be viewed not only from a distance, but also directly from below, from the entrance to the pavilion, many photographs were taken from such “risky” points.
Even before the final approval of the project, the metal structures department of the Palace of the Soviets was tasked with developing the design of the sculptural group. The main frame was manufactured by the Stalmost plant, while the details of the statue and its complete assembly were to be carried out by the TsNIIMASH pilot plant directly in the workshop and in the courtyard of the plant under the guidance of one of the “steel people,” as Mukhina called them, Professor P.N. Lvov. The main supporting frame of the statue is a riveted structure made of thick sheets of low-carbon steel. It was manufactured in a record time of 3 weeks. The weight of the frame is about 48 tons.
The shell was hung on the base using an intermediate frame made of angle iron, and was a series of small trusses. When the shell was blown with sand from the outside and inside, the entire frame was painted with red lead. The shell required 8.5 tons of stainless steel, and the intermediate frame required about 15 tons of steel of various profiles. For the engineers who were entrusted with the construction of the almost 24-meter statue, this was a completely new matter, without examples in the history of technology. Professor N.S., who advised them. Streletsky called the design “exotic.”
To begin work at the plant, it was planned to receive a six-meter model from the sculptors and make an enlargement based on it. However, there was not enough time to prepare such a model, and “at one of the very stormy meetings” P.N. Lvov proposed to build the statue using the 15x magnification method. It was a bold and risky proposal, but it gave the sculptors the opportunity to prepare the final model, one and a half meters high, within a month. The 15x magnification method gave only relatively accurate overall dimensions, but the relief of the shape suffered greatly. An error of 1-2 millimeters led to large distortions. In general, in the process of making a life-size statue, about 200 thousand coordinate points were measured on the surface of the model, and 23 technicians and draftsmen participated in this work.
Yet, due to lack of time, it was impossible to make detailed drawings of all the shell blocks. Vera Ignatievna, together with Zhuravlev, supervised the creation of intermediate templates and life-size wooden forms based on them. These were like huge “negative” prints of the surface of the statue; there were several hundred of them, since the entire shell was divided into 60 blocks. For Mukhina, Zelenskaya and Ivanova, correcting these forms was a very difficult task - after all, it was necessary to constantly imagine the appearance of a relatively small (relative to the total volume) section of the surface of the statue, and even in a “positive” form, enlarged compared to the model by 15 once.
From an engineering point of view, one of the most difficult elements of the composition turned out to be a fluttering scarf held by the collective farmer’s hand thrown back. It had a size of about 30 meters, a reach of 10 meters, weighed five and a half tons and had to be held horizontally without any support. Finally, engineers B. Dzerzhkovich and A. Prikhozhan calculated a special frame truss for the scarf, which reliably ensures its free position in space. But the director of the plant, S. Tambovtsev, in order to protect himself, wrote a denunciation to the government. The statue, he argued, could not be completed on time, because Mukhina deliberately interrupted work, demanding endless corrections, and even came up with a scarf that could break the entire group in a gust of wind. To make his “signal” more convincing, he wrote that, according to experts, in certain places of the steel shell of the frame, the profile of the “enemy of the people” L.D. allegedly appears. Trotsky.
This denunciation did not cause any special consequences at that time. But when, after the end of the Paris Exhibition and the return of the statue to Moscow, the commissar of the Soviet pavilion, Ivan Mezhlauk, as well as several engineers working on the statue, were arrested, they were reminded of Tambovtsev’s denunciation. They were rehabilitated after Stalin’s death, Mezhlauk - posthumously.
When everything was finished, the dimensions of the statue were specified. Its height to the end of the sickle is 23.5 meters, the length of the worker’s arm is 8.5 meters, the height of his head is more than 2 meters, the total weight of the statue is almost 75 tons. A few days later, the sculpture began to be dismantled, cleaned and blown with sand. They packed everything in boxes and covered it with felt. The sculpture with its frame, derrick and tools occupied the entire train - twenty-eight cars. In Poland, the train was delayed on the pretext that some boxes might not fit through the tunnel. The engineer accompanying the train, Raphael, cut off pieces of the statue with an autogenous gun, so that later he could weld them in place.
The main French building at the exhibition was the Palais de Chaillot, built on Trocadéro Hill. Below and to the left on the banks of the Seine, on the Quai Passy, a narrow rectangular area was allocated for the USSR pavilion, and opposite it, across Warsaw Square, approximately the same rectangle for the German pavilion. From the opposite bank of the Seine, this entire composition was perceived as a planning reflection of the socio-political situation of Europe at that time.
Project B.M. Iofana was a long building, rising with rapid ledges, crowned with a pair of sculptural groups. The pavilion itself was supposed to be an exhibit, and a most impressive one at that. Moreover, behind the flashy forms of the triumphal building there was hidden a rather poor exhibition.
The assembly of the statue was completed in record time - in just eleven days, instead of the expected twenty-five. On May 1, 1937, she shone in the sun in the sky of Paris. As the statue grew and covered itself with a shell, it made an ever greater impression on both friends and enemies. One morning, shortly before the end of construction, one of the Spanish workers who worked at the nearby pavilion of Republican Spain came to the Soviet pavilion and advised them to urgently inspect the winches of the installation crane. And not in vain - one of the cables turned out to be sawn. If the load on the crane's arm had occurred, it would have inevitably burst, leading to disaster and probably the hopeless destruction of the statue.
In April, Minister of Economics J. Schacht came to the construction of the German pavilion. He demanded that the German pavilion be higher than the Soviet one, after which round-the-clock work began on its upper part and the tower climbed up again. As a result, the huge coat of arms of the Nazi Reich - an eagle holding a swastika in its claws - appeared right in front of the faces of the “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. However, the fantastic dynamics of the statue, emphasized by the growth of the architectural masses of the pavilion, so dominated the overall panorama of the banks of the Seine that the static tower in front of the sculptures not only did not stop their rapid running, but seemed simply an inappropriate obstacle.
In a structure of such scale and character as the Paris Pavilion, architecture had to be dominant. Meanwhile, a clear impression was created that the pavilion was erected only to be the pedestal of a sculptural group. Thus, what Iofan could not get rid of in the project of the Palace of the Soviets was repeated in Paris: the result was a gigantic enlarged monument. By lining the side facades not with Gazgan marble, but with a composition of simentolite - a proprietary plaster mixed with natural stone chips - and designing the main vertical volume without windows, dissected only by vertical rods, Iofan further emphasized the “service” of this central part. And later, when constructing a pavilion for the New York World Exhibition, where he repeated the same basic scheme - a sculpture crowning the central pylon - the architect chose to implement the least interesting project of the statue “Worker” by V.A., which almost completely repeated his sketch. Andreeva.
When the exhibition closed, in France there was a desire to leave the monument in Paris, and the question of raising funds to buy it from the Soviet government was even raised. But it had already been decided to dismantle the statue and transport it to Moscow. A team of workers and engineers who did not know the complex specifics of the sculpture was sent to dismantle it. The statue was cut into pieces with an autogenous machine and dumped on platforms. Only the heads and the male hand of the statue reached Moscow without damage. However, the success and public resonance of “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” were so great that a decision was made to install the statue at the entrance to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, which opened in 1938.
In Moscow, it was restored from thicker sheets of steel (up to 2 mm) and mounted on a much lower pedestal in front of the Northern entrance to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (the layout of the square and monument was carried out by architects N. Bykova and I. Taranov). The original design of the pedestal, repeating the 34-meter tower of the pavilion, was hastily replaced by a low, 11-meter one, that is, 3 times lower than the pylon of the Paris Pavilion. The failure of this decision was clear in advance and became even more obvious after the installation of the statue.
The biggest dream of V.I. Mukhina’s idea was to stage “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman” above Moscow, on the Lenin Hills. All subsequent years, until her death, Vera Ignatyevna repeatedly wrote to the government with letters about the need to move the statue, and developed projects for its installation in various places in Moscow. Her personal drawings for the last two versions have been preserved. In one, it was planned to place the statue on a high pedestal on the spit of the Moscow River. In the second version, completed in the hospital, she proposed installing the sculpture on the Lenin Hills, on the high edge of the Moscow River, so that the height of the bank, without special expenses, would give the required height and flight to her “children,” as she affectionately called both figures.
Later, in 1962, Mukhina’s colleagues in creating “The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman” - Professor P.N. Lvov, sculptors Z.G. Ivanov and N.G. Zelenskaya again contacted the government with a proposal to move the statue. In 1975, the Presidium of the Academy of Arts approached the government with the same proposal. This time the Moscow Council decided to move the statue and prepare a higher pedestal. The design was entrusted to B.M. Iofanu. But at the beginning of 1976, being ill and continuing to work on the project of a new pedestal in Barvikha, Iofan died.
In 1987, another competition was announced to find a place for the famous group. We considered the undeveloped space near the new building of the Central Exhibition Hall on the Krymskaya Embankment, opposite the Central Park of Culture and Culture named after. Gorky. But neither Mukhina’s repeated letters to the government (the last one was sent by her shortly before her death), nor all subsequent appeals from the public led to anything, and the open competition ended with a strange but convenient decision: to leave everything as before, since “moving the statue is complicated and does not guarantee its preservation."
It should be noted that Mukhina and Iofan also considered the option of preserving the usual location of the monument, with the transfer of the sculptural group to a higher pedestal or the restored Paris Pavilion. When placing the sculpture in front of the entrance to the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, a unique urban planning situation was created, which made it possible to significantly emphasize the plastic, silhouette and symbolic characteristics of the sculptural group. The monument was placed on the axis of the main entrance to the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition and was perceived against the backdrop of open, undeveloped space and greenery, without including background urban development; in addition, it was delegated the role of one of the main exhibits of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.
But over time the situation has changed. In the 1950s The northern entrance lost its main status in the 1970s. behind the sculpture was installed the Montreal Pavilion, from the 2nd floor. XX century The areas surrounding VDNKh are being swept by a wave of industrial housing construction. Finally, at the turn of the 20th – 21st centuries, the perception of the sculptural group turned out to be distorted due to the construction of an overpass along the Mira Avenue route. In 2003-2005, a monorail transport system line passed along Longitudinal Passage, visually separating the spaces of the exhibition complex and the location of the monument. In the fall of 2003, “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was dismantled for repair and restoration work. Recently, a decision was made to demolish the Montreal Pavilion and build a shopping center in its place. At the same time, it is proposed to return “Worker and Collective Farm Girl” to its original place, placing them on a pedestal 40.6 m high.
At the same time, the compositional role of sculpture and the zone of its urban planning influence will undoubtedly increase. But at the same time, new construction at the Northern Entrance may negatively affect the traditional perception of both the Worker and Collective Farm Woman monument and the All-Russian Exhibition Center complex. In conclusion, we present the recommendatory section of the urban planning study conducted by specialists from the State Unitary Enterprise NIIPI General Plan in order to check the parameters of the designed multifunctional complex.
Based on the visual landscape analysis and expert assessment of its results, the following conclusions can be drawn:
In general, the scale of the designed complex (with a maximum height of exhibition pavilions of 26.8 m and a multifunctional center of 38.2 m / +182.2 m - 45.4 m / +189.4 m) is commensurate with the scale of the existing urban planning environment. The conducted studies showed that the height parameters of the exhibition buildings will not cause distortion of the existing conditions for the perception of cultural heritage objects of the All-Russian Exhibition Center complex. The conditions for permissible changes in the perception of the North Entrance Arch were determined in previously conducted studies. Forecasting the urban planning situation from distant and mid-distance points of perception proved the insignificant nature of the visibility of these buildings, or completely excluded the possibility of their visibility (taking into account green spaces and newly constructed buildings).
More controversial is the visual perception of the volumetric composition of the multifunctional center with the sculptural group “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman”, which is a state protected object of cultural heritage (a monument of monumental art) of federal significance (security No. 18, Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR No. 1327 of 08/30/1960).
The authors of the project under study did not consider the issue of restoring the Paris pavilion of B. Iofan. According to the presented materials, the sculpture is transferred to a high pedestal of about 40 m, which, as studies have shown, significantly increases its compositional value. At the same time, in connection with the protective status of the monument, the issue of a new pedestal for the sculpture, resolved in new forms or restored in accordance with the original decision, must be accepted by the Moscow Heritage Commission in the prescribed manner.
The project involves accenting the monument with pavilions of a multifunctional center located around it like an amphitheater. It should be noted that the location of the center buildings - on the territory of the protected zone of cultural heritage objects that are part of the All-Russian Exhibition Center ensemble - does not comply with the regime for regulating urban planning activities defined for this territory by PPM No. 83 of February 7, 2006.
It is recommended to develop variants of design proposals aimed at the compositional unity of the monument and the created architectural environment: it is possible to solve the stylistic forms of the pedestal in the spirit of the original project of B. Iofan, to develop a variant of the volumetric-spatial solution of pavilions and buildings with more plastically neutral characteristics. Acceptable parameters for the regeneration of territories within the boundaries of protective zones are determined by the Commission for the Regulation of Urban Development Activities in the Territories of Protected Zones. to this entry. You can
