Mayakovsky Square and -15

Mayakovsky Square is one of the coolest-looking places in Moscow. It's named after the guy in the middle, an absolutely iconic figure from the 20s and 30s. He was a Soviet poet and artist, and also produced some amazing, bonkers posters. This one is for a rubber company, of all things.




The words, which he wrote, go something like:

IT'S BEST TO SUCK.
THERE WASN'T AND THERE ISN'T [such good rubber as ours?].
READY TO SUCK UNTIL OLD AGE.

Like the statue of him looking visionarily into the glorious (Soviet) future, it has a certain power, I think.

The metro station below the square, also named after him, is beautiful. As you come up the escalators from the original station, built with delicate lofting arches and small gold-embossed stars and hammer-and-sickles, the dome of the new entrance appears above you. It's a vast mosaic of a blue summer sky, with clouds and birds. Lines of his poetry, the letters 2-feet high, float across, as does a rainbow.




Behind the statue in the square is the Peking Hotel, intended when it was opened as a monument to Sino-Russian friendship. It was originally built for the KGB however, and the rooms that guests now stay in were to be interrogation cells, and still have the red and green lights above the doors that would have shown if they were in use or not.

On the left, which you just can't see, is the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. I was there on Monday to research an article on a famous folk dance troupe. Against my will I was forced to take an interview in Russian (Me: "Can we speak in English?" Her: "What's your paper called?" Me: "The Moscow Times." Her: "Ah, The MOSCOW Times. And is it a Russian paper?" Me: "Er, yes." Her: "Right then, let's begin" (said in Russian.)). I spent 4 nervous hours that evening with a dictionary and my dictophone.