Mayor Yury Luzhkov on Wednesday denied that a monument to Stalin would be installed in the Kurskaya metro station.
Moscow’s chief architect, Alexander Kuzmin, said Friday that he wanted to return Kurskaya to its original appearance, noting that it contained a monument to Stalin when it opened in 1950.
But Luzhkov described media reports claiming that the monument would be reinstalled as “baseless,” Interfax reported.
The circle line station reopened in August after a reconstruction that included the return of a verse from the 1944 version of the Soviet anthem praising Stalin to the entrance hall, provoking a heated public debate. City authorities over the weekend returned another part of the verse, this time praising Lenin.
The verse in its entirety now reads, “The sun of freedom shone on us through storms, and the great Lenin illuminated our way. Stalin raised us to be loyal to the nation; He inspired us to work and be heroic!”
The Russian Orthodox Church has decried the return of Stalin’s and Lenin’s names to the artwork. Church spokesman Vladimir Silovyev said at a news conference Tuesday that the Soviet symbols would “divide” the people, RIA-Novosti reported.
Meanwhile, the head of City Hall’s cultural heritage committee, Vladimir Shevchuk, said Wednesday that his agency would file a complaint with prosecutors if metro directors failed to provide documents legalizing the reconstruction of the Kurskaya within two weeks.