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Sunday, 22.07.2007
VDNKh – Socialist Kitsch and Imported Junk
The "Exhibition of the Economic Achievements of the USSR (VDNKh) was once a premium socialist prestige project. Here visitors were supposed to witness the productive power of the Soviet plan economy.
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100 grandiose pavilions were erected in the 1950s to fill the grounds that stretch 2km from side to side, each of which was dedicated to an industrial sector or region. Today, the former exhibits have long since vanished into thin air.
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Instead, Korean video recorders and Spanish kitchens are sold in the pavilions. Especially infuriating is the loss of the space exhibition. The huge hangar previously housing Sputniks and space suits is now a car dealership.
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| Coordinates: |
Prospekt Mira
Next metro station: VDNKh |
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The exhibition grounds, today renamed from VDNKh to VVZ (All Russia Exhibition Centre), are nevertheless a must for Moscow visitors. In hardly any other place is the massive upheaval of the last fifteen years quite so blatantly obvious.
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The grounds’ fountains are also worth the visit. And for taking a photo of a bird’s eye view of Moscow, Europe’s largest big wheel turning in the exhibition centre grounds provides the perfect perch.
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Near to the VVZ are also two masterworks of socialist monumental art: ‘Sputnik at Take Off’ and ‘Worker and Peasant Woman’ by Vera Muchina.
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(rUFO/kp)
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