Dobryninskaya Metro Station (formerly Serpukhovskaya) Is Adorned with 16 Refined Bas-Reliefs by Yelena Yanson-Manizer, Wife of the Author of the Bronze Sculptures at Ploshchad Revolyutsii

The marble reliefs depict, for the most part, agricultural workers. This is presumably meant to allude to the chief farming trade of each Soviet republic. Why 16 republics? There were 15 Union republics, the RSFSR included, from 1956 onwards; in 1950, however, when the station opened, there was still the Karelo-Finnish SSR, later demoted to an ASSR. In all likelihood, that republic may be represented by the border guard with a dog among spruce branches.

The decoration of the station has come in for criticism: firstly, for placing the emphasis solely on agriculture; secondly, for showing exclusively solitary labour; and thirdly, for the absence from the bas-reliefs of modern means of production, tractors, harvesting equipment and other machinery.

To me the station seems very beautiful, and its purely Soviet multinational mood does not come across as perfunctory or vulgar; the figures themselves are graceful and free of any tinge of propaganda.