Moscow installs replica of historical Stalin monument in metro

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Moscow’s famed metro system has unveiled a Soviet-era monument to Josef Stalin in one of its central stations, as part of a gradual reappraisal of the dictator’s legacy in Russia.

The life-sized wall sculpture in the Taganskaya metro station is called “Gratitude of the People to the Leader-Commander” and dedicated to the victory in the Second World War, according to a statement from the transportation system. It depicts Stalin surrounded by a crowd of adoring civilians.

The work is a replica of the original that was at the station through 1996, but lost during the construction of a transfer between metro lines. The architects recreated the monument based on archival photographs and drawings.

Stalin, who led the country during World War II, presided over an era of mass repression where almost 2 million people are estimated to have died in the Gulag system, a network of forced labor camps.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he has mixed feelings about Stalin, telling American film director Oliver Stone in a 2017 interview that he was a “complex figure,” according to the state-run Ria Novosti news agency.

When asked if he admired the former war-era leader, Putin responded “of course,” but also said during the interview that “this does not mean that we should forget all the horrors of Stalinism, connected with concentration camps and the extermination of millions of our compatriots.”