Two-Headed Eagle Reclaims Old Perch

THE MOSCOW TIMESAs legislators vowed Friday not to remove the Soviet hammer and sickle from the State Duma building, the two-headed eagle of the Romanov dynasty -- albeit a plastic economy model -- reclaimed its pre-revolutionary perch at the tsars' 16th-century summer estate.A two-meter hard-plastic golden eagle, based on a crest smashed 66 years ago, was hoisted to the top of the bell-tower of the white-brick gates of Kolomenskaya, the park and museum on the banks of the Moskva river in southern Moscow.It was the first reinstallation of a tsarist crest on a building anywhere in Russia since the 1917 revolution, according to Kolomenskaya museum curator Vladimir Suzdalev. A similar double-headed eagle now appears on Russian coins and in the Russian state seal."All these cryptograms of Trotsky's should disappear," Suzdalev said, referring to Soviet emblems. "We need to return to our own traditional symbols."Meanwhile, downtown, Communist legislators defended the hammer and sickle Soviet crest on the Duma's new assembly hall on Okhotny Ryad.Duma speaker Ivan Rybkin, a Communist, reminded the assembly that a surviving law passed by the Supreme Soviet before its dissolution last fall forbids the removal of Soviet symbols if they are among a structure's "architectural details."Politics seemed far away as workers at Kolomenskaya winched up the tsarist eagle against a brilliant blue sky. Parents pointed out to children the monogram of Nikolai I on the bird's belly while brides trailing gauzy veils, cigarettes in hand, and dark-suited grooms strolled by among Queen Anne's lace and electric-blue wildflowers.Olga Trubnikova, the museum's research director, said, "Each period of history has the right to memory, good or bad."But Suzdalev called the eagle's launch "a political act," and attributed the Duma decision to "forces that want to reinstate Soviet power."The two-meter eagle, each head fearsomely baring a curling tongue, was based on an 1839 crest destroyed -- "thrown down," said Suzdalev -- in 1928 by the Communists.It broke into "tiny pieces," which were saved by museum workers and used as a model by Maxim Kosarev, 29, who designed the eagle as his graduation project at the Lord Stroganov Artistic-Industrial Institute.The new crest, made of a hard plastic material, weighs just 100 kilograms, is painted a dull gold and has a surface texture resembling styrofoam. Kosarev said the material he proposed, gilded copper, had been rejected for lack of funds.Asked if she regretted having to use the unglamorous material, Trubnikova said, "No, this is a new, modern material -- why should we repeat the old? This is used in space, so I understand."The smashed eagle was actually the third to top the gates. The first eagle, made of a material contemporary writers called "white iron," was mounted when Tsar Alexander Mikhailovich, father of Peter the Great, had the gates built in 1673.Svetlana Kolosova contributed to this article.