Worker and Kolkhoz Woman in overalls and a sarafan in the colours of the Russian tricolour, sewn by the Monolit textile association in 1998

The decision to dress the sculpture was taken to draw attention to the preservation of a monument that in the 1990s had fallen into an extremely lamentable, dilapidated state. It is reported that in those years one of the petty officials was ready to sell the monument for scrap metal to the USA.

The action by a group of artists led by I. Ortegova, sponsored by the Monolit association, a manufacturer of workwear, was meant to draw attention to a landmark monument of the era.

Sergey Lukyanov, head of Monument, recalled:

At first the idea seemed to us plainly unfeasible. The sculpture is 45 metres high; you cannot get an arm or a leg into clothing… But we decided to take the risk. We turned to industrial climbers. Incidentally, it turned out that tramps were living inside the hollow sculpture. It took us eight hours to dress "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman". We devised clothing with lacing and "fitted" it, as they say, to size on the spot: a red sarafan, blue overalls and a white scarf.

The action did indeed draw attention to the monument. Three days later the clothing was ordered to be removed. The official who had granted permission for it was removed too, from his post. But one way or another, in the early 2000s the city hall did allocate funds for the restoration of the monument. Work began in 2003 and was completed in 2009, costing 2.9 billion roubles in total.