“Plowman of the Universe”, I.A. Gagarin Youth Centre
Location: Chisinau, Moldova
Completed: 1972
Artist: Aurel David
Alternative name: “Glory to the Plowman”
Genre: Mosaic, Soviet artwork, former USSR
The I.A. Gagarin Youth Centre once housed an 800-seater hall, sports facilities, a disco and a hotel in which only foreign guests were permitted to stay. The complex was constructed using money raised at weekends by members of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (the Komsomol), which was the political youth organisation of the USSR. A number of workshops were held at the centre, including one in which reportedly the first energy-saving lamp in the Soviet Union was invented. The building became abandoned at some point after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
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