A bas-relief with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin as its central figure was unveiled in the passage between Taganskaya station of the Koltsevaya and Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya lines of the Moscow Metro on 15 May. Photos of the bas-relief, installed in the passage, were published by several telegram channels.
We are talking about a copy of the sculpture “gratitude to the people to the military leader”. In the centre of the composition – the figure of Stalin, which is surrounded by sculptures of representatives of different professions and ages with flowers.
The Department of Transport of Moscow earlier wrote about the upcoming opening of the sculpture. The department calls the bas-relief a restored historical bas-relief dedicated to the victory in the Great Patriotic War. It was allegedly placed at the Taganskaya station of the Koltsevaya metro line until 1966, but the monument was “lost” during the construction of an interchange to the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line. Specialists, as stated in the Department of Transport, recreated the composition from archive photos and documents, and the bas-relief will exactly repeat the original.
The Moscow metro ring line was built during Stalin’s reign. During the years of the campaign to expose the “cult of personality” (late 1950s – early 1960s), Stalin’s image and references to him were removed from the metro. In 2009, during the restoration of the lobby of Kurskaya station, a line from the Soviet anthem with a mention of Stalin was placed there, which was protested by human rights activists at the time.
In recent years, more and more monuments to Stalin have been unveiled in Russia. Most often they are initiatives of private individuals or the Russian Communist Party. But in the Vologda region, the construction of such a monument was supported by the governor.