In a different time

The mosaics of Evgeny Lanceray (Евгений Лансере), an artist and practitioner of monumental art during the USSR.  This mural at Komsomolskaya Metro Station, depicts the 'heroic feats' of the communist youth movement, Komsomol, in the construction of the first sections of the Moscow Metro.  Lanceray's work on this mural was commemorated on a postage stamp on the centenary of his birth in 1875. One of his earlier and better known works, the old Nikolsky Market in St Petersburg, hangs in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.  Lanceray, being an artist with the free expression that accompanied that profession, and the attendant risks to that status following the socialist revolution, appears to have adapted well to the new era, and as a blog post notes "was untouched by the repressions" of that era.

Amazing what one uncovers during a stroll through the city on a Saturday afternoon. I had passed through the station on my way to the Yaroslavsky Railway Station, the departure point for the Trans-Siberian and Trans-Mongolian Express trains - the latter for which I am currently researching a trip at the end of March.