Moscow’s Tretyakov Sculpture Garden (aka the Art Muzeon Sculpture Park) hosts a wide variety of modern sculptures, including a number of abandoned Soviet statues. These statues appear to be consciously presented as debris from a past life – this doesn’t seem like an attempt to glorify the Soviet past, but merely to record it. It is at GPS 55.7361,37.6090 outside the New Tretyakov gallery, just South of the giant Peter the Great statue. It’s well worth a visit if you care about Moscow’s Soviet past.
 A striking and dramatic statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka (later the NKVD, then the KGB) on a high plinth with the KGB emblem at the front. This is the very statue that used to stand in front of the KGB headquarters in Lubyanka Square and which was dramatically toppled in August 1991. |
 A rare Brezhnev bust, looking characteristically blank. |
 A sad and defaced Stalin statue. |
 Stalin and Lenin busts, guarding giant Soviet insignia. |
New Tretyakov Gallery
The New Tretyakov hosts many Soviet era paintings. A couple that caught my eye were:
 ”Defence of Petrograd”, A. Deineka (1927). The workers’ militia marches to the front. The injured return. |
 “A People’s Court”, S. B. Nikritin (1934). A grim view of Soviet Power, showing a strange mixture of threat and fear. A very brave painting for 1934. |
