look the same' doesn't work," said Pavel Gnilorybov, a historian and editor for the Telegram channel "Arkhitekturnye izlishestva" (Architectural Luxuries).
Nonetheless, both Gnilorybov and Alexey Musatov, a Moscow Architectural Institute professor who knew the original fountain's creator, said that the Stone Flower looked quite coarse in 1954 as well: in the Stalinist era, Gnilorybov said, the sculpture's lush colors drowned out the grey reality that surrounded it, and VDNKh "was conceived as a model of the empire in miniature."
Ivan Golunov and Pavel Merzlikin
Translation by Hilah Kohen
