The entrance to the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute building on Nakhimovsky Prospekt in Moscow has been fenced off; it is not in use at present

The entrance to the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute building on Nakhimovsky Prospekt in Moscow has been fenced off; it is not in use at present. I took the trouble to walk over specially, to capture a living legend while it is still one. Last year there was talk of demolishing the legendary mosaic high relief depicting a Möbius strip. The point is that, according to specialists, the structure holding up the multi-tonne sculpture needs repair, so the relief will not necessarily simply be pulled down; more likely it will be dismantled, restored, have its load-bearing parts reinforced and be hoisted back into its former place. Be that as it may, we may not see this work by Eleonora Zharenova and Vladimir Vasiltsov on the building behind INION for some time, and it is a truly unique and impressive piece: it is hard to recall a more successful rendering of the Möbius loop in monumental sculpture, and it is, of course, yet another vivid example of the inimitable achievements of Soviet public architecture