The Fresco in the Belarus Pavilion at VDNKh: Why It Was Thought to Be Lost

In the Belarus pavilion at VDNKh, the fresco ‘The People of Belarus Have Built Socialism’, located above the entrance, had been covered by a layer of plaster since the mid-1970s. The mural was no longer visible and, according to the exhibition’s official website, was considered lost. During restoration, it was returned to the ceremonial loggia. The entrance as it stands today incorporates elements from different periods: individual architectural details were recreated, the majolica garlands were restored, the sculpture at the top of the tower was reinforced, and the five figures below were replaced with exact copies.

The architects placed the mural at the far end of the semicircular courtyard, on the visitor’s route to the main hall. After the pavilion changed from an exhibition devoted to the republic to ‘Electrical Engineering’, the ceremonial approach lost some of its original decoration. A comparison of VDNKh’s historical account, documents from the pavilion’s operator and a Moscow publication on restoration shows exactly what was recovered and where the sources still do not allow us to assess how much of the original survives.

Which pavilion does the fresco belong to: the building of 1937 or 1954?

The fresco belongs to the present stone pavilion, built in 1949–1954 to a design by Grigory Zakharov and Zinaida Chernysheva. The date 1937 refers to an earlier wooden building for the Byelorussian SSR and several regions. Confusing these buildings when discussing the mural means mistakenly attributing the artists’ vision to pre-war architecture.

The history of the new building is supported by documentary evidence. The Belarusian Trade and Exhibition Centre, which manages the pavilion, cites a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Byelorussian SSR dated 6 April 1949 concerning Zakharov and Chernysheva’s design, and an exhibition committee resolution of 13 April approving it. According to the construction logs cited there, work began on 2 July 1949 and was completed on 25 August 1954. The Moscow publication on restoration also dates the stone building to 1949–1954. These details help distinguish the history of the present entrance from that of the first exhibition buildings on the same site.

The earlier wooden pavilion underwent changes to both its appearance and its displays. For the fresco, however, another point matters: the designers of the stone building had the opportunity to bring architecture, decorative ceramics, painting and sculpture together along a single continuous route. The mural was not a later embellishment of a blank wall; it occupied a space set aside in advance in front of the main entrance doors.

Why do accounts give different pre-war dates?

Official sources give differing accounts of the building’s history before Zakharov and Chernysheva’s design. The pavilion’s operator describes a wooden building erected in 1937 and reconstructed in 1938. In a 2022 publication, VDNKh states that the first building was demolished in 1939 and another was built by 1941. The Moscow publication on restoration lists the stages differently: construction in 1937, alterations a year later, then construction of the stone building in 1949–1954. Without architectural drawings and construction records from the intervening period, these versions cannot simply be combined into a single undisputed sequence.

The discrepancy has little bearing on the article’s central question. The design for the present stone building was approved in April 1949, and, according to the construction logs, work was completed in August 1954. Official sources place the fresco by Pavlenko and Uitz specifically in this building’s loggia. The debate over whether another building existed between the wooden pavilion and the stone one therefore provides no grounds for dating the mural itself to the pre-war years. It is important here to distinguish the history of the site, the history of the building and the history of the individual artwork.

Why was the pavilion placed between two squares?

The location of the present Pavilion No. 18 determined its silhouette: the building stood at the boundary between Kolkhoz Square and Mechanisation Square, and its tiered tower marked the transition between sections of the exhibition. The operator’s historical account explicitly links this location to Zakharov and Chernysheva’s arrangement of the building’s volumes. The fresco thus formed part of a building that visitors first recognised by its elevated sculpture, then by its two rows of columns, and only afterwards by the mural at the entrance.

The design approved in April 1949 provided for 1,500 square metres of exhibition space within a total building volume of 15,000 cubic metres. These figures relate to the calculations for the new stone building, not the dimensions of the earlier wooden pavilion. The architects placed the main exhibition space behind the façade, but set the entrance wall back from the square, creating an open courtyard in front of it. To reach the mural at the far end, visitors passed through the columns.

The building’s plan is considerably simpler than its ceremonial façade: the main footprint is rectangular, while the open courtyard is semicircular. A narrower upper volume rises above the first tier, followed by the tower and a rotunda with a sculpture. This sequence is recorded in the official historical and cultural heritage assessment, which reproduces the list of the pavilion’s protected features. The document also identifies the building’s role in the architectural composition of the former Kolkhoz Square as a protected feature. The fresco can therefore be read at two scales: from a distance, it forms part of a landmark within the VDNKh ensemble; close up, it is the focal point at the far end of the entrance courtyard.

The location explains why the mural cannot be studied solely through a photograph taken straight on. A photograph conveys the subject, but does not show how the view changes as one moves from the square towards the doors. The tower comes into view first; then the colonnade obscures the inner courtyard, within which the loggia comes into sight. This is a conclusion drawn from the layout, as confirmed by the operator and the list of protected features, rather than an account of an individual visitor’s impressions.

Where is the fresco, and why is it not immediately visible?

The mural is located in a covered loggia beyond the open semicircular courtyard, rather than deep inside the exhibition hall. Visitors pass between two rows of columns, enter the courtyard and only then see the painting above the entrance. This arrangement is documented in the Moscow Government’s publication on the restoration of Pavilion No. 18.

The colonnade establishes the fresco’s scale and viewing position. The columns feature colourful majolica garlands of fruit and flowers; their lower sections are faced with tiles bearing botanical patterns. The courtyard was paved with ceramic mosaic. The mural sits above the entrance in the loggia. Fruit motifs recur in different materials, but each material serves its own purpose: ceramics frame the route, painting depicts people and the harvest, and sculpture carries the same imagery above the roof.

The pavilion operator’s historical account states that the original mosaic floors of the courtyard and exhibition hall were covered with marble breccia during later alterations. The entrance as it appears today therefore cannot be read as an untouched snapshot of 1954. Even where the composition has been restored, its details have undergone various alterations and restoration treatments.

How did the mural’s themes continue inside the pavilion?

The fresco marked the threshold of a large exhibition devoted to the republic, rather than being the only artwork along the route. According to the operator’s historical account, beyond the ceremonial doorway stood an introductory hall with columns finished in artificial marble and a dome. This led into the adjoining exhibition space: the layout was not based on separate small rooms, but on display stands dividing the exhibition within a shared hall. This arrangement allowed visitors to move from the outdoor scene of a festive procession to displays of specific sectors.

The pavilion’s documents list manufacturing, livestock farming on collective farms and flax cultivation. This is not a list of current exhibits, but the exhibition programme of the mid-20th century. The fruit and sheaves in the fresco offered viewers a generalised image of the harvest before they encountered the exhibition materials. Following the same principle, national ornament extended beyond the colourful majolica of the façade: the hall’s mosaic floor patterns recalled Belarusian embroidery. The functions of the halls confirm the connection between the artistic imagery and the exhibition programme; without the artists’ sketches, the precise intention behind individual figures in the fresco remains a matter of interpretation.

Light entered the original hall through upper windows on the south, east and west façades; the account also mentions bronze chandeliers with three tiers of crystal. This distinguished the interior from the loggia, which was covered but faced the open courtyard. Crossing the entrance changed both the source of light and the way the displays were viewed: the façade painting was designed to be seen from a distance, while the display stands and decorative floor required viewing indoors. Later partitions and blocked windows altered this experience more profoundly than the replacement of the façade inscription.

The description of the original introductory hall includes a sculptural group of Lenin and Stalin. In tracing the fresco’s history, the focus should be on the spatial arrangement rather than retelling its political narrative: visitors moved through a sequence of exterior painting, architectural entrance, hall and sector-specific displays. The present interior should not be mistaken for a setting preserved from 1954. The operator describes numerous later alterations, while the heritage protection document separately lists the historic columns, dome, openings and ornamental floors as architectural features of the building.

Who painted the mural, and what does it depict?

The mural was created by Oksana Pavlenko and the Hungarian artist Béla Uitz. The Moscow publication on restoration renders Uitz’s surname as ‘Uitts’; VDNKh calls him Uits. Both sources identify their joint work as the mural in the entrance loggia of Pavilion No. 18.

VDNKh describes a festive procession, fruit and large sheaves of wheat in the fresco. This is the characteristic visual language of the 1954 exhibition: the artists presented an envisioned image of prosperity and labour, rather than a visual record of actual harvest figures. When the painting comes into view after the garlands on the columns, visitors encounter a continuation of the theme of abundance already introduced outside. This conclusion follows from the location and recurring motifs, rather than from any discovered explanation by Pavlenko or Uitz.

The same artists created the fresco ‘The Peoples of the RSFSR Have Built Socialism’ above the entrance to Pavilion No. 71. VDNKh notes similarities between the two works: a festive procession, fruit and sheaves. This offers a useful comparison when interpreting the mural in Pavilion No. 18: a shared artistic formula does not make the works in the two pavilions one and the same. The particular setting of the Belarusian fresco was shaped by Zakharov and Chernysheva’s courtyard and the adjoining decoration of their building.

VDNKh’s biography of Oksana Pavlenko helps clarify the artist’s role in the exhibition’s history. She contributed to the decoration of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition both in the late 1930s and during its post-war reconstruction; alongside the two surviving murals created with Béla Uitz, the official overview mentions her painting ‘Cotton Harvesting’, displayed in the loggia of the Azerbaijan SSR pavilion and subsequently lost. The Belarusian fresco has a different status: VDNKh describes its concealment beneath plaster and subsequent restoration, whereas ‘Cotton Harvesting’ is described as a lost panel.

What can the fresco’s titles and subject tell us?

Published materials give different titles to the same mural. VDNKh and the Moscow publication on restoration call Pavlenko and Uitz’s work ‘The People of Belarus Have Built Socialism’; the operator’s historical account refers to the theme ‘Socialist Belarus’, while the historical and cultural heritage assessment identifies the loggia frieze as containing the fresco ‘Soviet Belarus’. These differences provide no grounds for recording three separate murals: all refer to the 1954 composition in the same entrance location. Its artists, location and range of motifs can be identified with confidence; the available sources do not explain the precise history of changes to its title.

The designation of protected features describes the fresco as a triptych-like composition and records its location, colour scheme and technique. This record carries more weight than a brief photograph caption: it shows that protection extends beyond the mere presence of paint on the wall to the structure of this particular work. However, the list of protected features does not provide a detailed identification of every figure. VDNKh’s official publication mentions a festive procession, fruit and large sheaves of wheat; assigning a profession to every person depicted on the basis of this description would be unwarranted speculation.

In 1954, this portrayal of prosperity formed part of the setting for the republic’s exhibition. It tells us about the image the republic was expected to present at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, and much less about the actual material circumstances of any individual family. Keeping this limitation in mind guards against two errors: treating the painting as an illustration of statistical reality and, conversely, refusing to study it as a historical document. Its architectural setting, the titles used in the sources and its range of motifs allow us to explore the visual language of the period without attributing statements to the artists that they did not leave in the published material.

Can the painting technique be determined from the word ‘fresco’?

In publications about Pavilion No. 18, the term refers to the monumental mural in the entrance loggia, but the available descriptions do not reveal the composition of its paint layer. In strict art-historical terms, painting on wet lime plaster differs from painting on a surface that has already dried. The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains this difference in terms of how the pigment bonds with the plaster. For this particular mural by Pavlenko and Uitz, the heritage protection document identifies the technique as a protected feature, but the published list includes no results from binder analysis or examination of a cross-section of the layers.

An example from a Getty study shows why the term needs to be used with care: the work discussed there is traditionally called a fresco, although examination of the paint layer revealed that it was painted on dry plaster. This finding does not apply to the Belarus pavilion; neither the pigment composition nor the technique of the mural studied can be assumed to apply here. It merely illustrates a method of verification: the catalogue name, the visible paint layer and the technique established through laboratory analysis represent different levels of knowledge.

Published information about Pavilion No. 18 covers the mural’s location, authorship, subject, prolonged concealment and the outcome of its restoration. What is missing is a publicly available technical record of this particular mural showing the substrate, the later plaster, the surviving fragments and the areas where losses were filled in. The article therefore uses the term ‘fresco’, as adopted by official sources, without making claims about a specific binder or the percentage of original paint. This distinction matters when answering the question of what exactly was ‘found’ after the later layer was removed.

How did the fresco come to be covered with plaster?

The sequence of changes is firmly established, but published sources identify no specific order to cover the fresco. In 1964, the pavilion was renamed ‘Electrical Engineering’ and given an exhibition devoted to that industry. National motifs in the interior were simplified, and structures were added to the building to accommodate its new use. According to VDNKh, the mural above the entrance had been concealed beneath plaster since the mid-1970s.

The website’s wording ‘was believed to be lost’ does not prove that the fresco was physically destroyed. The mural disappeared from public view; restorers later worked on it in the loggia. The publications available to us provide no layer-by-layer report stating how much of the original paint layer survived beneath the plaster or which areas had to be painted in. The story of the fresco’s discovery therefore calls for more careful wording than simply ‘found intact’ or ‘painted anew’.

What changes paved the way for the fresco’s disappearance from view?

The change of exhibition took several years and affected both the outdoor visitor route and the interior halls. In 1963, VDNKh’s Operations Department prepared plans for an extension; its acceptance certificate is dated 15 August 1964. In 1966, a separate design brief was approved for converting the former Byelorussian SSR pavilion into ‘Electrical Engineering’. These dates show why the mural’s concealment cannot be tied to the single day on which the pavilion was renamed: the architecture was adapted in stages to its new role as an industry pavilion.

The operator’s historical account lists the physical consequences of the conversion. The portico on the rear façade was enclosed within the extension. The columns in the introductory hall were clad in metal, the dome was concealed by structural additions, and the clerestory windows were covered with fibreglass fabric. A mezzanine floor was added in each of the two side halls; the original ceramic floors of the courtyard and exhibition space were covered with marble breccia. These alterations were separate from work on the fresco itself, but illustrate the general approach to the conversion: the original decorative scheme and spatial arrangement became less accessible to visitors.

From the early 1990s until November 2006, the building was used as a retail pavilion. This subsequent use did not restore the original visitor route linking the mural, the hall and the exhibits either. What matters to the history of the work is the outcome of this long period: someone could stand beside the familiar colonnade and still not see the painting created for it. The phrase ‘was believed to be lost’ refers specifically to the fresco’s fate in public view; it is no substitute for a technical report on the condition of the plaster and paint layer before uncovering.

What exactly did the restorers bring back?

The restorers made the decorative composition of the main entrance legible again: they restored the fresco painting in the loggia, the majolica garlands and the architectural decoration of the colonnade. A Moscow publication places the work on the principal façades and the sculpture at the top within the phase completed in October 2015. VDNKh reports that restoration returned the fresco to its original appearance. This last phrase describes the result for the viewer, but does not in itself indicate the proportion of surviving paint.

The pavilion as a whole was restored in several stages. Work on the extension took place in 2007–2008; the main exhibition hall and the historic part of the building were addressed in 2008–2012. The principal façades and the sculpture at the top followed. This chronology matters for the fresco: the opening of the trade and exhibition centre and the return of individual elements of the historic decoration were not a single, instantaneous event.

How did the restorers distinguish between strengthening and reconstruction?

Work on the entrance involved more than cleaning the façade. A Moscow publication on the restoration reports that, by October 2015, the load-bearing structures and the fixings for the moulded decoration on the main colonnade’s pediment had been reinforced. The mouldings were restored, missing elements were reconstructed in places, and the polychrome majolica garlands and the painting in the loggia were repaired. Describing all this simply as ‘repainting’ would obscure the key to understanding the result: the architectural structure, the ceramics and the fresco were in different states of preservation and required different kinds of work.

Andrey Bembel’s sculpture at the top provides a particularly clear example. According to the restoration publication, it is 7.63 metres high and 4.96 metres wide. The figure was cast in several reinforced concrete sections; its outer shell was covered with golden smalt, and it has an internal metal framework. During their survey, specialists recorded the loss of around 50 per cent of the mosaic, cracks extending through the layers of the shell, delamination, moisture in the cavities and metal corrosion. Its size and complex construction explain why restoring its silhouette required more than simply replacing the surface covering.

Parts of the left shoulder, right elbow, and the middle and lower sections of the sheaf were deemed structurally unsafe. The publication describes both new sections of smalt mosaic and the reattachment of surviving original pieces. These terms refer to two materially distinct operations: replacing losses and securing original material. After restoration, the surface once again reads as a complete golden figure, but beneath this apparent unity lie original material, reattached fragments and new work. The original structure of the upper statue was retained, and missing details were recreated.

Which figures at the entrance are originals, and which are copies?

Following restoration, the five figures of the ‘Workers of Belarus’ on the tower’s second tier are represented by exact copies. The distinction between these and the upper sculpture is fundamental: ‘Mother Belarus’ was preserved and restored, while the severely damaged group below was replaced after the originals and historical images had been studied. Work on the copies belongs to the final phase in 2016.

The group depicts a milkmaid, an agronomist, a female collective farm worker, a hunter and a farm machinery operator. The Moscow restoration publication explains the reason for the decision: wind, time and damage had caused a substantial loss of the sculptor’s original modelling in the concrete figures. Plaster moulds were taken from the originals, missing parts were reconstructed using images, and copies were then made in fibre-reinforced concrete and installed. Visitors see the historical composition in its original setting, but the material and age of these five figures are now different.

The arrangement of the sculptures helps explain the fresco itself. A painted procession carrying the harvest greets visitors in the loggia; higher up, on the tower, are figures representing occupations and labour, while a figure with a sheaf and a wreath crowns the structure. This is a deliberate artistic programme for a mid-20th-century exhibition building. The meaning of its historical symbols can be explained without treating the idealised scene as a literal account of everyday life.

Which features of the original entrance have not been restored?

The operator’s historical account lists features of the original façade, but the published text does not confirm that all of them were restored. Sculptural groups depicting Belarusian partisans stood at the corners of the colonnade; the document explicitly identifies them as lost. In the centre of the façade, above the columns, was a decorative shield bearing the republic’s coat of arms and banners covered in smalt in golden and silver shades. The document records the original position of these features, but does not state that the entire shield or every element of the banners was restored. An account of the restored ensemble must not silently assume that they are present simply because the nearby majolica and fresco are visible again.

Which elements of the ensemble are protected under the documents?

The pavilion’s legally protected features help distinguish its verifiable historical structure from a general impression of a ‘Stalin-era pavilion’. An appendix to the official expert assessment reproduces Order No. 438 issued by the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage on 3 October 2016. It lists the building’s location, its rectangular main block with a double-height interior, the open semicircular courtyard, the rectangular loggia, two rows of columns, the upper structure, the tower and the rotunda. For the reader, this is almost a plan of the route towards the fresco: the very approach that integrates the image into the architecture is protected.

The document also examines less obvious details. It identifies Doric columns in the outer colonnade and Corinthian columns in the loggia colonnade; it notes polychrome majolica, fruit garlands, medallions with ears of grain and stars, and a moulded ceiling with squares, octagons and rosettes. The architectural setting of the mural thus changed as visitors approached the entrance. Reading the document this way adds precision to what we see, but does not require us to regard every visible tile as original: after restoration, the precise age of an individual detail is established from the records of the work.

The same list includes mosaic floors with geometric patterns reminiscent of embroidery, historic staircases and the dome of the introductory hall. The location and composition of the fresco, described as a triptych, are specifically protected, as are the upper statue and the five figures on the second tier. The list of protected features safeguards the significant characteristics of these works even where a damaged part has had to be restored or replaced with a copy. It is not an inventory of every surviving fragment of paint, nor can it answer, on the restorer’s behalf, how much of the artist’s original paint layer was uncovered.

The name of the property in the assessment includes the dates ‘1939–1954’. This is the official designation used to register the monument, and must not be taken as the date of the fresco’s creation. The wooden building existed earlier, while the present masonry structure was built in 1949–1954. The difference between the name of the protected property and the chronology of a particular mural clearly shows why several documents were needed for a single article: the assessment lists protected features, the construction history traces the replacement of the building, the VDNKh publication names the artists, and the restoration publication describes the work carried out on the material.

Why should the present-day interior not be mistaken for the 1954 exhibition?

After the façade was restored, the halls were modernised for use as a trade and exhibition venue. VDNKh reported that on 23 August 2022 the Republic of Belarus Pavilion opened as a modern venue with large digital screens. The present-day interior therefore does not reproduce the 1954 exhibition. The same official publication cautiously states that the restoration, completed by 2015, partially restored the building’s historical appearance. This describes specific phases of work; it provides no basis for promising visitors a reconstruction of the mid-20th-century agricultural exhibition.

In 1954, beyond the fresco were displays on livestock farming, flax cultivation and production; the upper windows and ornamental floors formed part of the same visitor route. Following the 2022 modernisation, the mural is once again visible above the entrance, while the original exhibition programme can be studied through documents from the pavilion’s operator.

Can the present-day entrance be considered a fully preserved ensemble from 1954?

No: the entrance as it stands today preserves the design and significant elements of the ensemble, but incorporates restoration and reconstruction. The historic spatial layout leads through a semicircular courtyard to the loggia; the fresco is visible once again; parts of the column decoration have been restored; the upper sculpture has undergone substantial structural reinforcement; and the five lower figures have been newly made as replicas.

The extent to which the painting itself is original remains a separate question. VDNKh confirms that the fresco was concealed beneath plaster and that its original appearance has been restored, while a Moscow publication confirms the restoration of the loggia mural. Neither published account provides a map of the original paint layer after the overlying material was removed. Giving a percentage for the surviving original fresco or describing in detail the methods used to reintegrate missing areas of the painting without a conservation report would be speculation.

At the entrance to Pavilion No. 18, the painting is best viewed together with the colonnade and sculptures: the colonnade leads to the loggia, with the figures positioned above it. The ensemble visible today combines surviving elements, restored details and replicas. Understanding this distinction helps you appreciate the 1954 design and correctly identify the age of each element.

The Belarus Pavilion is included in the ‘VDNKh and Space’ tour of the VDNKh pavilions: the itinerary includes visits to the Belarus and Azerbaijan pavilions. After learning about the history of the fresco, you can trace the route through the courtyard of Building No. 18, from the majolica columns to the loggia mural and the five figures above it.

Sources

1. VDNKh: The Artists of VDNKh and the Frescoes of Oksana Pavlenko and Béla Uitz
2. More Than Seven Million People Visited the Republic of Belarus Pavilion at VDNKh in Ten Years of Operation
3. VDNKh: A Love of History — Pavilions and Their Historic Details
4. Moscow Government: Moscow as It Is. Restoration of Pavilion No. 18
5. Belarusian Trade and Exhibition Centre: Historical Background to Pavilion No. 18
6. Moscow Government: Historical and Cultural Expert Assessment Report Defining the Protected Features of the ‘Republic of Belarus’ Pavilion
7. VDNKh: reopening of the Republic of Belarus Pavilion following modernisation in 2022
8. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: fresco and painting on dry plaster techniques
9. Getty Institute: a study of the painting technique used in the Getty Peacock
10. Itinerary for the ‘VDNKh and Space’ tour