Mukhina

Vera Mukhina's majestic statue of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman ('Kolkhoz' meaning 'collective farm').  I've blipped it previously on 2 January 2014 and, more recently, on 9 January 2016.  Even more recently (and inadvertantly) in the background of this blip on 19 February 2016.

In her words about the statue, "a young man and a girl, the owners of the Soviet land, symbols of the working class and the kolkhoz peasantry, raising high the emblem of the Soviet Union, the hammer and sickle”.

I have been meaning to shoot this statue at sunset to try and capture the soft tones. Finally managed to do so today and I stuck it out until last light in spite of a cold wind (minus 8C) coming off the snow.  In the end the light didn't change much and maintained its hue throughout.  Nonetheless, the light as expected was soft and warm and so characteristic of this time of the year.

This shot was taken about half an hour before sunset and from a platform about 800 meters from the statue.  Using a 70-200 lens with a 1/4 extender.  I liked the way the sun reflected off the raised sickle.  Today's second blip illustrates the scale of the structure (24.5 meters high).

The statue was the first welded one ever created.  It was commissioned for the Soviet Union's exhibit at the World's Fair in Paris in 1937 (also shown here).  Heaps of intrigue in that event.  A few years ago it was dismantled for maintenance; a few interesting shots of that process (and here too).

As an aside, I was interested to read that Mukhina was born in Riga, into a family of wealthy merchants.  Their home was located just behind the Central Market (appropriately I guess, being merchants) which I blipped recently, on 13 February 2016.  Blip can help one connect the dots it seems!