Центральный военно-морской музей

Exhibition “Leaders and Navy. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Revolution of 1917”

At the exhibition you can see more than ten large-scale paintings with a traditional socialist realism topic of communication between leaders and masses, which have not been exhibited for more than half a century. The revolutionary mass in this case is represented by sailors, who are fatherly instructed by Lenin or Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev are not forgotten, of course, while visiting navy ships.

The canvases are accompanied by agitational fleet-themed porcelain, and portraits of leaders of the Soviet state embroidered by Navy officers’ wives, which were most likely presented to leaders as gifts.

The exhibition also features models of ships. One of them is “Sverdlov“ light cruiser model. Another is the model of the leader of “Leningrad“ type destroyers made in a unique technique – completely of birch wood.

A special place is given to busts of “repressed” leaders. These sculptural works were walled in by museum staff in one of the walls of the special fund’s storage facilities, so as to prevent re-melting after the February 1956 report of N.S. Khrushchev at the XX Congress of the CPSU “On individual cult and its consequences.” They were saved, because they were not handicraft consumer goods, but works of famous masters, having a high artistic value.