To Moscow To Metro

TALES ON THE CEILING


It happenned like this when only the dead
Were smiling, glad of their release

Anna Akhmatova

It is Station Mayakovskaya. One of our poets, Veronika Dolina, named those mosaics on the ceiling - "Tales on the ceiling".

"I love to watch foreigners on Mayakovskaya - where they looking up on the ceiling and twittering as birds..." - she wrote.

 

There are tales, indeed - on the mosaic medallions depicting "A day of the Soviet country" (made by V Frolov by the cartoons of A. Deineka).  They are sequenced to evoke a day.  Coming from the escalator passengers see early morning, cherry trees in blossom, and two planes in the sky.  The next panel – diver plunge into water headfirst on the background of the sky.  Next – ripe peaches, signalman on a ship mast and a seaplane, parachutist, and aviaparade.  In this medallion the clock of the Spasskaya Tower shows noon.  The morning has ended.

The afternoon has started. The first afternoon panel shows a girl driving a combine harvester: Grain are in the ear  Wind blows about red flags.  The second one – a pole-vaulter clearing a crossbar.  Next – three gliders in the sky, four parachutists with many-colored parachutes and a plane flying away, ski jumping, brazen reflection of sunset on pines and a flying plane, sculpture “A Girl with an Oar” in Gorky Park, a red plane in the sunset sky. 

Here the night starts.  The first night panel shows two planes on the background on sunset clouds.  Then, the planes but at night.  The plane lights are switched on.  Next – an airship over the Spasskaya Tower (the clock shows midnight), nights parachute jump, a biplane in search-light, two planes in false dawn.

Early morning.  Furning chimneys and tail cones of chemical mills.  Beyond the chimneys -– a starotplane starts, pioneers launch air models, three guys play volleyball, morning parachute jump, airplane flies above semicircle colonnade, a steeplejack takes load, seagulls are above a ship with a flag, a woman with infant in arms...

And so on, and so forth... In other words - happy day of the Soviet State and Soviet people. Parachutes, models,volleyball, happy work on the fields and at the plants. But... the peasants were locked into "kolkhosy" and were hold there as slaves, and the workers did nothing else, but tanks, airplans, another weapon, and steel and electricity for all of them.

It was year 1938 when the station was open, the year when Stalin's death harvest was the highest. No one could tell better than Akhmatova about that time:

It happenned like this when only the dead
Were smiling, glad of their release

"Requiem"

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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