Yeah, I'd say that's a bit sensual for a time when Soviet girls were generally pictured wearing coveralls and driving tractors or steam shovels.
Posted on 09/03/2011 10:47:53 AM PDT by Steelfish
Too Sexy For Stalin: Russian Rowers Embrace Oar Girl Statue A copy of banished nude — (pic in URL) adopted by rowing association as new symbol — has been installed in Moscow's Gorky Park
"Girl With an Oar," a copy of the 1934 original sculpture by Ivan Shadr, rises on the bank of the Moskva River in Gorky Park in Moscow, is due to be unveiled Saturday.
9/3/2011 The artist may have been a favorite of Stalin, but Ivan Shadr's statue "Girl With an Oar" proved too sexy for the Soviet dictator.
The 23-foot nude statue, sculpted in 1934, was banished from pride of place in Moscow's Gorky Park to Ukraine in 1936 and replaced with a less sensual version, The Wall Street Journal reported.
However, a copy of the original was due to be unveiled Saturday on the bank of the Moskva River in the park at the finish line of an international regatta course, the paper said.
The replacement, still nude but apparently more tasteful, was destroyed in World War II; Shadr died of an illness in 1941 and the model for the statue, Vera Voloshina, was captured and killed by German forces, the WSJ reported.
But the statue is being given new life with Yulia Anikeyeva, a Soviet rowing champion and executive director of the Russian Amateur Rowing Association, telling the paper it had been adopted as the association's symbol.
"We want to show that we now live in a different country. The notion that she must be dressed — that's changed," she added.
Imitations of the statue — that did not fall foul of the state censors — were put up throughout various parks, often dressed tastefully in track suit swimwear and swimwear. Those tarnished the memory of the original, which became something of a joke,....
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
fucrissakes, you can’t post a pic?
Yeah, I'd say that's a bit sensual for a time when Soviet girls were generally pictured wearing coveralls and driving tractors or steam shovels.
And you'd think with all that rowing, she'd be a little less Rubenesque.
Aaaah them Rusky’s! Hubba hubba!
Nice Bunda
What a weak, ugly woman! She would never be able to push wheelbarrows full of cement all day on a jobsite. Definitely not a candidate for Miss Tractor Factory 1935.
how do I get it to rotate 360?
I think kiddie porn is still legal in Russia too. It’s not exactly a polite society.
Me likey the trunk
The sculpture’s a blatant rip-off of a classical goddess. I’ve seen it somewhere, but can’t recall right now. Probably Italian - Canova, maybe. Too dramatic and self-conscious for actual Greek or Roman, I think.
In Soviet Russia overalls wear YOU!
I can’t believe you forgot to ping Laz for a hit opinion.
More Soviet Era BS!
That girl is waaay too well fed to be typical of the USSR’s average female.
I’d settle for 180.
Them ain’t oars.Thar me sisters.
You need to be in The Matrix...
“The 23-foot nude statue, sculpted in 1934, was banished from pride of place in Moscow’s Gorky Park to Ukraine in 1936”
So, is the original still in place and intact?
Comparison photo would have been nice, and why the reduced scale?
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