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Children Are the Victims of Adult Vices

Children Are the Victims of Adult Vices
Artist	Mihail Chemiakin
Completion date	2001 (unveiled)
Type	Bronze sculpture
Location	Moscow, Russia
Coordinates	55°44′45″N 37°37′10″E / 55.745935°N 37.619376°E / 55.745935; 37.619376

Children Are the Victims of Adult Vices is a group of bronze sculptures created by Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin. The sculptures are located in a park in Bolotnaya Square, Balchug, 2,000 feet (610 metres) south of the Moscow Kremlin behind the British Ambassador's residence.^[1]

The monument consists of 15 sculptures. In the center of the composition are two blindfolded children. At their feet are two books: Russian Tales and Alexander Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, as well as a globe. The figures of children are surrounded by sculptures in the form of anthropomorphic monsters, personifying "adult" vices:

• Drug addiction – depicted as a bald man with bent wings offering a syringe.
• Prostitution – depicted as a woman with the head of a frog.
• Theft – depicted as a man with a boar's head, carrying away a bag of money.
• Alcoholism – depicted as Bacchus holding a goblet.
• Ignorance – depicted as a donkey holding a rattle in his hands.
• Pseudo-science is depicted as a caricature of Themis with a helmet over her eyes, a scroll with an alchemical tree, and a two-headed puppet.
• Propaganda of violence is depicted as an arms dealer.
• Sadism is depicted as a cassocked figure with a rhinoceros head.
• An empty pillory represents the forgotten victims of repression.
• The exploitation of child labor – depicted as a factory owner with the head of a bird.
• Poverty – depicted as an old woman begging for alms.
• War - a figure of a battle droid from Star Wars , with bent wings and a gas mask resembling a character from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, holding a bomb with the head of Mickey Mouse. The wings are the same as those of the Addiction figure, giving the composition symmetry.
• Indifference stands in the center of the composition and is shown as a many-armed figure, both deaf and unseeing.^[2]

The sculpture was commissioned by then-Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and sponsored by the state-owned oil company Rosneft. It was unveiled in 2001 amid some controversy. Some Muscovites worried that the graphic imagery would frighten children.^[2][3] Chemiakin said that, "[The sculpture] ... was conceived and carried out by me as a symbol and a call to fight for the salvation of present and future generations."^[4]

See also[edit]

• Allegory of Gluttony and Lust

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• The Children – Victims Of Adult Vices: Sadistic And Terryfying Sculptures In Moscow Park
• Children are the Victims of Adult Vices, Bolotnaya Square, Moscow