Who created the New Year's mood in Soviet Kirov?

Winter Theater Square in Kirov was probably the most elegant in the USSR. Every year it was decorated with huge painted figures made of snow: ruddy archers and heroes, deer and bears, princesses in patterned kokoshniks and young men in golden caftans. Several generations of Kirov sculptors and artists were involved in their sculpting, led by Faina Shpak and Nikolai Ledentsov.

Ice slide on Teatralnaya Square, 1955 © Walking along Vyatka / VKontakte

It all started in 1953 - on New Year’s Eve, polar bears made of snow appeared in the park near the puppet theater. They were sculpted by sculptor Faina Shpak. The following winter, the bears appeared again, only not in the park, but in the very center of the city - near the large Christmas tree on Teatralnaya Square.

From now on, Faina Shpak and her colleague Vadim Ryazantsev annually sculpted fairy-tale characters for the holiday: Morozko, Sivka-Burka, a deer with golden horns, Father Frost and the Snow Maiden. Sometimes modern heroes also appeared: in 1960 - the pioneer Volka and Old Man Hottabych, and in 1962 - an astronaut greeting the guys from the rocket. They were painted with bright colors by masters from the Union of Artists.

Sculpture of a bear on Teatralnaya Square © Walking along Vyatka / VKontakte

However, in 1970, a ten-meter monument to Lenin was erected on the square, which for a time displaced the heroes of space and fairy tales. By the way, the same Faina Shpak worked on it. The city leadership considered that it would be incorrect to erect other sculptures, even ice ones, next to such a significant monument. Only in 1979 did snow figures and slides appear on the square again.

Now the role of the main storyteller has been taken by Nikolai Ledentsov, who, it seems, was ready for this from birth - it was not for nothing that he was born in the village of Ledentsy, Kirov Region. In 1974, he graduated from the Penza Art School, where he met his future wife and co-author Lyudmila Perkhun. Already in his student years, the sculptor dabbled a little in sculpting snow figures, but it was only in Kirov that he truly showed himself in this matter.

In 1979, Ledentsov came up with the idea of building a fortress wall with heroes at the entrance, and the next year he was involved in the New Year’s decoration of the entire square. The central hill was decorated with a Dymkovo lady with a loaf and a turkey. The choice of the heroine was not accidental. Clay Dymkovo toys are perhaps the most famous folk craft of the Vyatka region.

The order from the culture department came to the sculptor every year on November 10 - immediately after the anniversary of the October Revolution. First, a model was made from plasticine, then from plaster. The sample painted with tempera was taken to the Art Council for approval. Next, the carpenters installed a frame of boards, ten times the size of the figure, and scaffolding on the square. The sculptors began sculpting, and the artists began painting.

They worked quickly and hard. One of the artists who painted the figures in 1988 recalled that he worked for 10-11 days without a break, sometimes at night, for which he was generously paid - about seven monthly salaries of a school art teacher. It was not without problems: one year the snow did not fall until almost the holidays, in another there was little of it again, and Zmey Gorynych was left with an unfinished wing, in the third, just before acceptance, a thaw came and the colors floated on the snow.

Despite the weather troubles, every year the treasured sculptures, so beloved by Kirov residents, appeared near the Christmas tree on Teatralnaya Square. Nikolai Ledentsov has been sculpting them for 19 years! But since 2007, the decoration of the square has passed into the hands of the municipal architecture department. According to the sculptor himself, he was “borted” by the architects whom he involved in installing the figures. Whether this is actually true is unknown. However, such bright sculptures as in the times of Shpak and Ledentsov are no longer erected in Kirov.