Monument to Ilya Repin

The monument to Ilya Repin stands on Bolotnaya Square, not far from the embankment of the same name and Luzhkov Bridge, within walking distance of Tretyakovskaya metro station. The bronze figure of the painter was created by sculptor Matvei Manizer, the pedestal's architectural design was developed by Igor Rozhin, and the grand unveiling took place on September 29, 1958.

The choice of site for the monument was explained by its proximity to the Tretyakov Gallery, which holds a significant part of Repin's legacy — from portraits of his contemporaries to large historical canvases. The square itself bore the artist's name from 1962 to 1993, before its historical name “Bolotnaya” was restored. The monument became the country's first full-length depiction of Repin, giving it special significance among other sculptural tributes to the painter.

The bronze figure stands on a rectangular granite pedestal that narrows toward the top. The sculptor depicted the artist in a relaxed, natural pose at work: his head slightly tilted, a palette in one hand and a place for a brush in the other, as if the master had paused for a moment while working on another canvas. The pedestal bears a commemorative inscription from the Soviet government, dedicated to the great Russian painter.

The monument's creator, Matvei Manizer, born in St. Petersburg in 1891, was one of the leading sculptors of the Soviet era and a theorist of Socialist Realism. He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Georgy Zaleman and Vladimir Beklemishev, and later taught at the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture as well as at Moscow art schools. Manizer is the author of the well-known sculptures at the “Revolution Square” metro station, created in 1936–1939. In the year the Repin monument was unveiled, the sculptor received the title of People's Artist of the USSR; he was also vice-president of the USSR Academy of Arts and a three-time Stalin Prize laureate. The pedestal's architect, Igor Rozhin, a graduate of the Leningrad VKhUTEIN and a participant in the prewar design of the Palace of Soviets, contributed over the years to the decoration of the “Smolenskaya,” “Park Kultury,” and “Elektrozavodskaya” metro stations, and later headed the architectural workshop that designed the Moscow-region town of Zelenograd; he was awarded both the Lenin Prize and the Stalin Prize for his work.

The monument to Repin has long become part of the everyday urban landscape of Bolotnaya Square. For City Day celebrations in 2014, a small park was arranged next to the monument, making the spot even more inviting for city residents to relax. Today the sculpture stands alongside modern embankment landscaping features, remaining one of the few surviving Soviet-era monuments to artists in Moscow and a reminder of this district's close ties to the history of Russian painting.