The Stone Flower at VDNKh: the tale, the film and the vision behind the fountain

The name of the Stone Flower Fountain at VDNKh refers to Pavel Bazhov’s tale of the same name. The project’s connection with Aleksandr Ptushko’s 1946 film, also called The Stone Flower, is explicitly noted in an official publication. Created for the opening of the renovated All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in 1954, the fountain had a composition of its own: a flower amid crystals, jets of water and sixteen bronze still lifes depicting the bounty of the republics.

In description of the early Sheaf design sturgeons and geese were envisaged — details absent from the tale. Researcher Aleksandr Mazikov suggests that the overcomplicated concept was divided between the Friendship of Peoples and Stone Flower fountains. This hypothesis accounts for the exhibition themes in the composition; the published materials do not establish the precise sequence of design decisions.

Why is the fountain at VDNKh called the ‘Stone Flower’?

The Stone Flower Fountain shares its name and central image with Bazhov’s tale: Danila the craftsman searches for a way to reveal the beauty of stone in the bowl he is making. The text of the tale shows how working with malachite becomes an artistic challenge for Danila.

First, Prokopyich teaches Danila to cut stone; the overseer tests his skill, and the master specifies the shape of the piece to be made. Danila can fulfil the commission and wins recognition, but technical perfection is not enough for him. He seeks a form that reveals the stone’s natural pattern and inner vitality. The central question, then, is one of craftsmanship, rather than simply a striking encounter with the Mistress of the Copper Mountain.

For a new bowl, Danila chooses a thorn apple flower as his model. Bazhov describes how the craftsman finds a suitable block of malachite and carves the leaves and stem, yet remains dissatisfied with the top: the finished piece has lost the sense of a living flower. This episode establishes the tale’s central tension. Danila’s hands know how to work the stone, but he does not believe he has captured what he himself saw in nature.

In the Mistress’s underground garden, Danila sees large malachite bellflowers on black bushes. Bazhov offers no ready-made design for a future monument: his description works through colour, movement, sound and an almost impossible union of stone and life. After the encounter, Danila smashes the thorn apple bowl he made, while the bowl made to his master’s design remains intact. This distinction matters to the fountain’s history: its name borrows the image and the theme of artistic striving, but the tale’s conflict goes beyond the sight of a flower in bloom.

The dates of the works help trace this theme. Citing research on Bazhov, the Culture.RF portal dates The Stone Flower to 1938 and The Mountain Craftsman to 1939. The second tale continues the story of Danila and Katya; the closing line of the first explicitly promises more to come. The continuation cannot therefore be reduced to the single scene in the underground garden. The fountain uses a recognisable image from the cycle, but does not tell the rest of the story.

In the scene with the Mistress, the question of imitation becomes still more pressing. She offers Danila another stone suited to his idea, but when he asks to see the wondrous flower, she warns him of the cost of such knowledge. Having seen the underground garden, he is told that choosing the right material will not be enough to recreate its image: the idea must come from within him. This is an important distinction when comparing the tale with the fountain. The architects were not following a ‘technical brief’ from Bazhov’s text; they transformed its artistic question about stone and living form into a different medium.

What role did Aleksandr Ptushko’s film play?

Audiences saw Danila’s story on screen in 1946. The Mosfilm entry names Aleksandr Ptushko as director, Pavel Bazhov and Iosif Keller as screenwriters, and Mikhail Bogdanov and Gennady Myasnikov as production designers. The studio describes the picture as a fairy-tale film based on tales from the Urals, rather than a word-for-word adaptation of a single text.

The sequence matters when drawing comparisons. The tale already existed when Ptushko made his film; the exhibition fountain appeared eight years after the film’s release. VDNKh links the conception of the project to the film. Another official exhibition publication says the architect was inspired by a collection of Bazhov’s tales. These accounts are compatible: the literary image and its popularity on screen may both have played a part, but the published information does not reveal the full course of the design decisions.

The Mosfilm entry also notes that the film won an award for colour at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival. This helps explain why the tale’s visual imagery stayed with contemporary audiences, but it does not prove that a particular palette was transferred directly to VDNKh. The fountain has its own materials and scale, which must be examined through information from the exhibition itself and restoration records.

There is also a difference in meaning. In Bazhov’s tale, Danila enters the Mistress’s garden and sees something that human hands cannot recreate. The fountain is open for everyone to see; visitors can walk around its central flower, while the water continually changes the composition’s appearance. Bringing the image into a public space required the architect to solve problems that neither the storyteller nor the film director faced.

In the published history of the studio explains that the move to colour filming required changes to film processing, lighting, make-up and power supply. The Stone Flower received an award at Cannes for its use of colour after these technical efforts. This production background helps explain the film’s significance in 1946. It cannot, however, tell us what the fountain’s glass mosaic was made of: its manufacture and restoration are documented in other sources.

Who conceived the architectural and sculptural design?

Moscow’s official register of cultural heritage sites credits the 1954 fountain to architect Konstantin Topuridze and sculptor Prokopy Dobrynin. This is more accurate than attributing the entire composition to one person. The register names both creators but does not specify which elements of the fountain each designed. A report by the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage explicitly names both men in its entry for site No. 448.

The Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage’s 2017 magazine Moscow Heritage also names architect Grigory Konstantinovsky in connection with the project, while its main text mentions Dobrynin and the workshops of the USSR Academy of Arts. Publications summarise this collective work in different ways. The official register is the more reliable source for attributing the protected monument itself; Konstantinovsky’s mention in a specialist publication shows that the design history extends beyond a single register entry.

Another VDNKh source identifies the creator of the smaller figures: the sturgeon fountains are attributed to sculptor Valentina Alexandrova-Roslavleva. This makes clear the distinction between the designer of the overall composition and the artist responsible for an individual element.

In 1954, Topuridze was also involved in creating other major fountains at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. These fountains are often discussed together because they were built in the same year and stand close to one another, although each has its own design. At the Friendship of Peoples fountain, figures arranged around a sheaf define the main silhouette; at the Stone Flower, a flower on a tiered pedestal gives the composition its scale, framed by separate groups of water features and bronze sculptures.

What did the fountain’s creators add to the literary image?

The creators of the exhibition ensemble made the flower the centrepiece of a large composition of water and sculpture. The site’s entry on the VDNKh website describes the basin as a flower opening among gemstones and separately lists sixteen bronze still-life compositions depicting the natural bounty of the Soviet republics. These groups of objects do not appear in Bazhov’s tale.

This distinction helps explain the fountain’s purpose. It was created for an agricultural exhibition, where architecture and sculpture presented the achievements of the republics. The stone flower motif therefore appears alongside fruit and other gifts of nature. Bazhov’s story gives the composition its evocative name; the bronze groups express the exhibition theme shaped by the place and time of its creation.

The sixteen still-life compositions should not be confused with the sixteen figures of the neighbouring Friendship of Peoples fountain. In the first case, VDNKh’s official listing describes bronze compositions of natural bounty on granite pedestals; in the second, statues representing the republics surround a central sheaf. The fountains share an exhibition theme, but differ in their artistic language and design.

VDNKh’s guide to its fountains also describes small fountains shaped like cast-iron sturgeon and bronze geese at the Stone Flower. These figures are easy to miss if you look only at the central basin. The sturgeon and geese belong to the exhibition’s theme of nature’s bounty; they do not appear in Bazhov’s tale.

‘Moscow Heritage’ writes that each of the sixteen still-life arrangements was originally intended to represent the produce of a different Soviet republic. That plan was abandoned: four designs were made and repeated around the pool. Searching the pool’s edge for sixteen unique references to the republics would therefore lead visitors to the wrong conclusion.

VDNKh’s official description retains the broader phrase ‘gifts of nature from the Soviet republics’. The four repeating types of bronze group show how a plan for individual tributes became a decorative sequence around the pool.

A specialist publication describes sixteen cast-iron shells on the central tier, the same number of mosaic flowers above them, and a separate row of sixteen decorative still-life arrangements. These details belong to different levels of the structure; confusing them can easily produce an inaccurate ‘map’ of the fountain. Before counting them on site, it helps to establish which band of the composition you are looking at.

What is known about the early ‘Sheaf’ design?

Alexander Mazikov, in the journal Moscow Heritage describes a design for the ‘Sheaf’ fountain developed by Konstantin Topuridze and Grigory Konstantinovsky during the renewal of the VSKhV exhibition grounds. It envisaged a sheaf of grain at the centre, surrounded by sixteen female figures and an equal number of bronze still-life arrangements. The names of the Soviet republics were to appear on granite plinths. The same description also mentions groups of sturgeons and geese. These elements already had a place in the exhibition’s imagery before the Stone Flower took its final form; they do not appear in Bazhov’s tale.

Mazikov links the crowded early design to the new layout of the square, which had taken shape by 1952. He suggests that the original concept was divided: the sheaf and figures became the centrepiece of the Friendship of Peoples fountain, while the still-life arrangements, fish and birds became part of the Stone Flower ensemble. The author himself qualifies this conclusion with the word ‘apparently’. His article cites no document that explicitly confirms the division of the project, so the precise sequence of decisions remains unknown. The similarities between the two fountains are explained through descriptions of the early designs, but the proposed chain of events remains the researcher’s reconstruction.

This perspective adds to VDNKh’s account of how Ptushko’s film influenced the idea of the flower. The film and Bazhov’s tales help explain the central image; the exhibition’s design history helps explain the arrangements around it. The sources do not establish when the designers brought these elements together or chose the final name. When looking at the still-life arrangements beside the stone bud, it helps to keep both origins in mind: a literary motif and the visual language developed earlier for the agricultural exhibition.

What is the Stone Flower made of, and why is it easy to mistake it for a gemstone?

The impression of stone is created with more than one material. VDNKh describes crystals of Ural gemstones around the central bud and petals decorated with smalt and gold cantarelle; its account of the restoration lists coloured marblite and glass cantarelle containing sheets of gold. The visible ‘gemstone’ effect is therefore best understood as decorative craftsmanship, rather than evidence that the fountain was carved from malachite.

The word ‘stone’ connects the fountain to Bazhov’s tale and shapes what visitors expect to see. Danila, the character in the story, works with malachite; for a large outdoor fountain, Topuridze and the craftspeople used other materials capable of creating coloured facets across broad surfaces. Distinguishing the stone of the story from the fountain’s actual cladding makes their achievement clearer: they created the image of a precious flower, rather than enlarging the hero’s malachite bowl.

Water is as important to the fountain’s appearance as the mosaics. The VDNKh guide gives a figure of around a thousand jets and a pool area of 3,450 square metres. These numbers convey the scale of the whole system: the central composition, the smaller fountains and the expanse of water. From a distance, the flower is the focal point of the ensemble; closer up, attention shifts to the finishes, the bronze and the patterns made by the jets.

The light across a structure like this is constantly changing. Coloured glass, gilded details and moving water look different as the lighting changes. This observation follows from the fountain’s design, rather than from any claim about a particular film shot. Mosfilm documents the film’s use of colour as an artistic achievement; VDNKh documents the materials used in its fountain. A shared aim of creating vivid colour does not, by itself, establish direct borrowing.

A specialist description of the fountain gives a more precise account of its finishes. According to Moscow Heritage, the eight-metre bud rises from a tiered pedestal. The upper tier is decorated with stylised clusters of jasper, malachite, lapis lazuli and rhodonite; the two lower tiers are faced with rough granite. The names of the stones describe the artistic representation of the crystal clusters; they do not establish that every coloured section visible was carved from the corresponding mineral.

On the lower tier, the publication notes golden ‘scales’ made of yellow cantarelle mosaic on a silver base, while the sides of the pool are faced with polished red granite. Rough and smooth surfaces sit side by side, as do the shine of glass and the dark bronze. These differences help the viewer distinguish the central image drawn from a fairy tale from the more earthly setting of the exhibition pool.

VDNKh explains how the two types of smalt used in 1954 were made. Marblite is coloured, opaque glass. Cantarelle was made by enclosing sheets of gold leaf in different shades between glass plates of varying colours. These materials give the petals depth and shifting colour, although they are not the malachite of Danila’s workshop. The precise terminology matters: calling them ‘gilded tiles’ would obscure how they were made and the role of the glass.

Danila chooses a block by its veins so that the bowl’s shape follows the pattern of the malachite. The fountain’s makers built up the colour of the petals from glass tesserae and surrounded them with stone cladding. In both cases, the material shapes the result, though stone carving and monumental mosaic call for different approaches.

How do the water jets and smaller figures around the flower work together?

The central bloom is only one part of an intricate pattern of water jets. VDNKh describes four smaller ‘Basket’ fountains around it and two rows of ‘birch tree’ fountains in the rectangular part of the basin. The pool contains 24 sturgeon figures that spout water, while groups of three geese sit beneath each of the sixteen still-life compositions. The appearance of the ensemble therefore depends on the whole system at work, not just the height of the central jet.

According to the same VDNKh publication, the sturgeon figures were made by Valentina Alexandrova-Roslavleva. Three geese beneath each of the sixteen still-life compositions make forty-eight figures, the same number given in the 2019 restoration report. The journal Moscow Heritage gives a different figure of 16 goose fountains, at odds with both the VDNKh description and the restoration document. The published accounts do not explain the discrepancy.

Cast-iron shells with mosaic inlays line the outer wall of the central tier. The Moscow Heritage Department’s journal also mentions four circular groups of fountains on either side of the pedestal and lights in niches beneath the bronze still-life compositions. The engineers, in other words, designed the spectacle on several levels: the central vertical jet, the side jets, figures on the water and lighting from within the ensemble. When the basin is dry, this system is almost impossible to discern.

For the history of the tale, these details matter chiefly because they show that the exhibition project had a vision of its own. Bazhov’s tale contains no sturgeon, geese, ‘birch trees’ or arrangement of water jets. All these elements belong to the composition created for the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition and help turn the flower into a large fountain visible among the pavilions. Without supporting production documents, it would be misleading to call them ‘illustrations of the film’.

How does the fountain relate to the post-war exhibition of 1954?

The history of the Stone Flower fountain at VDNKh begins with the post-war renewal of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. The official VDNKh guide dates the fountain to 1954, names Konstantin Topuridze as its architect and identifies it as a cultural heritage site of federal significance. The large Friendship of Peoples and Golden Ear fountains were created at the same time, but each was given its own distinctive design.

The chronology helps avoid a common confusion between eras. The All-Union Agricultural Exhibition opened in 1939, while the present Stone Flower dates from its 1954 renewal. The name ‘VDNKh’ came later: the agricultural, industrial and construction exhibitions were combined into the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy in 1959. The complex’s modern name is convenient for readers, but the project’s original setting was the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.

At the exhibition, the literary theme became part of a broader celebration of abundance and craftsmanship. In the tale, the stone tests the skill of one craftsman; in the fountain, the central flower is surrounded by fruit and symbols of the republics. This interpretation of the composition draws on its documented elements and its place in the ensemble. It is not a published account of Topuridze’s own intentions.

What did the 2018–2019 restoration of the fountain preserve?

The 2018–2019 restoration returned the fountain to its historic appearance and restored its water system, but its present finish does not consist entirely of material from 1954. A VDNKh report dated 18 April 2019 states that specialists managed to preserve about 30% of the original smalt; the remaining pieces were made using examples from 1954.

As restorers cleaned the surviving tesserae, they found that the original colours were brighter than the fountain’s appearance after decades of fading. New smalt was made with reference to the original fragments. This explains why photographs taken before the work can give a different impression from the restored fountain: recovering its colour did not mean repainting it arbitrarily.

An official Moscow Government report gives a different, narrower figure: about 20% of the smalt that had been removed was put back in place, while the rest was recreated using historic examples. The percentages refer to different operations and bases of calculation, so they cannot be added together or presented as a single measure of the entire fountain’s ‘authenticity’.

VDNKh also reported that worn pumps had been replaced and the original pattern of water jets restored. This is essential to understanding the ensemble: the fountain was designed as a composition in motion. When the water is off or some jets are missing, visitors see only part of the design. This information relates to 2019 and does not guarantee that the fountain will operate in the same way on any future date.

A VDNKh report dated 30 April 2019 lists the individual elements restored: specialists refurbished forty-eight bronze geese, recreated twenty-three lost sturgeon figures and restored the one that survived, and repaired sixteen cast-iron shell basins and the bronze still-life compositions. These details help visitors understand what they see today. The figures’ forms come from the historic ensemble, but some of the individual castings were made during the restoration.

The same report puts the total weight of smalt used at about eight tonnes. That large figure does not reveal how much historic glass survives on each individual petal: the material was removed, cleaned and replaced where needed, fragment by fragment.

The engineering changed more visibly than the decorative finish. Eleven modern pumps replaced five old ones; VDNKh reported that, after the work, the jets rose from seven or eight metres to their historic height of fifteen metres. The new pumps help recreate the intended pattern of water, although the equipment itself belongs to the twenty-first-century restoration. The city report separately mentions the restoration of more than seventy per cent of the granite cladding on the base and the replacement of just two slabs around the rim of the basin.

The differing figures for the water jets also need to be understood in context. In its description of the fountain, Moscow Heritage magazine says that some of its water patterns reach a height of twenty metres; following the restoration, VDNKh reported that the jets had returned to their historic height of fifteen metres. These accounts were published at different times, and the measurement conditions are not specified clearly enough to reconcile them into a single definitive figure. What matters more to visitors is the restored principle: when the fountain is running, it transforms the composition’s sense of volume.

There is a material difference between a photograph from 1954, an image of the faded mosaic taken before 2018, and a view after restoration. Moscow Heritage published a historic night view and described the state of the engineering systems as of 2017. A specialist account records emergency stabilisation work in 2014 that did not resolve the main problems; a comprehensive restoration came later. When comparing photographs, it is therefore essential to establish the date and condition of the fountain first. Otherwise, a change in colour could mistakenly be attributed to a new artistic vision.

What is known about the fountain’s music and the Shostakovich legend?

Accounts of the origins of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Festive Overture differ. A publication by the Moscow City Heritage Department says the piece was written for the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1954. Yet the composer’s catalogue of works cites an interview about the piece published on 29 August 1947, and the Union of Moscow Composers dates its composition to 1947. The overture premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre on 6 November 1954. Its first performance therefore does not establish when it was composed or confirm that it was specially commissioned.

VDNKh says that surviving accounts indicate the Festive Overture was played when the Stone Flower Fountain was inaugurated in 1954, but it gives neither the exact date of the ceremony nor the document on which this claim rests. Moscow Heritage magazine also mentions music being played while the fountain operated, without dating its first performance there. The catalogue of works dates the public premiere to 6 November 1954; the overture’s connection with the inauguration ceremony needs further documentary evidence. VDNKh attributes the description ‘the first light-and-music fountain’ to a number of historians. These sources provide no evidence that every jet was continuously synchronised with the score.

The lighting has also changed over time. A publication by the Moscow City Heritage Department notes that the old equipment used to illuminate the jets had to be removed by 2000, and temporary LED lighting was installed in 2013. According to VDNKh, a new multicoloured system was installed in 2019. Anyone seeing the fountain in the evening after its restoration is viewing a historic artistic design through modern equipment. The lighting should therefore not be described as an entirely authentic 1954 technology.

Can we say that the fountain copies the film or the tale?

The published sources do not support a claim of literal copying. VDNKh points to the 1946 film as the inspiration for the fountain and to Bazhov’s tales as the source of its imagery. Mosfilm’s film entry and the available publications provide no drawing or testimony that would identify a particular shot as the model for a detail of the central basin.

Bazhov’s text itself calls for caution. The stone flower in the Mistress’s garden belongs to an impossible, fairy-tale world. The fountain, meanwhile, includes arrangements of the republics’ produce, sturgeons, geese and an entire system of water jets. These elements serve the purposes of an agricultural exhibition and the design of a monumental structure. The shared name and floral motif do not diminish the project designer’s independent work.

The film, for its part, has its own production designers and cinematic form. Without viewing and comparing specific frames with the archival design, it would be misleading to claim that the film’s colour palette determined the shades of the smalt. A more modest and precise statement can be verified: the film preceded the fountain; VDNKh’s official account links it to the origin of the idea; and the architectural composition was developed in its own right.

Which details help visitors understand the fountain on site?

Start by distinguishing the central flower, the surrounding crystals and the separate row of bronze still lifes. This reveals two scales of the design: a fairy-tale image at the centre and, around it, an exhibition narrative about the republics. A closer look at the granite pedestals with their cast-iron scrolls shows that the still lifes were conceived as distinct parts of the ensemble.

Next, look for the smaller water figures — the sturgeons and geese mentioned in the VDNKh guide. They challenge the impression of the structure as a single large bud: the fountain is more intricate, designed to draw the eye across the basin. The coloured finish of the petals shows how the impression of a gemstone was created. Here, it is especially easy to confuse the literary image with the actual materials.

Finally, the nearby Friendship of Nations Fountain makes it possible to compare two compositions from 1954 without confusing their details. In one fountain, the republics are represented by figures; around the perimeter of the other, four types of still life depicting nature’s bounty are repeated. This does not prove that the creators of both works gave every element the same meaning. It is a verifiable difference in their visible forms and in VDNKh’s official descriptions.

What connects the tale, the film and the fountain?

Bazhov’s tale gave the fountain its name and central image; VDNKh’s official account links the origin of the idea to Ptushko’s 1946 film. Architect Konstantin Topuridze and sculptor Prokopy Dobrynin created their own composition for the 1954 All-Union Agricultural Exhibition: the flower is surrounded by water, mosaics, bronze still lifes, sturgeons and geese. Published sources identify no particular film frame as the model for the basin, leaving parts of the design history unresolved.

The fountain is included in the ‘VDNKh and Space’ tour: after visiting the Friendship of Nations Fountain, you can examine the central flower, its decorative finish and the bronze representations of the republics’ produce before continuing towards the exhibition pavilions.

Sources

1. VDNKh: the history of Konstantin Topuridze’s fountains and the Stone Flower’s connection to the film
2. VDNKh: the Stone Flower fountain
3. VDNKh: a guide to the exhibition’s fountains
4. VDNKh: restoration of the Stone Flower fountain
5. Mosfilm: The Stone Flower
6. Pavel Bazhov: ‘The Stone Flower’, full text
7. Russian State Library: ‘The Stone Flower’, 1948 edition
8. Moscow City Government: report on the fountain’s restoration
9. ‘Moscow Heritage’: the design of the Stone Flower fountain, its creators and still lifes
10. Moscow Heritage Department: public report listing the fountain’s creators
11. VDNKh: Konstantin Topuridze and the design of the Stone Flower fountain
12. VDNKh: results of the 2019 fountain restorations
13. Mosfilm: the development of colour filmmaking and Ptushko’s film
14. Culture.ru: ‘The Stone Flower’ and a study of Bazhov’s work
15. VDNKh: the exhibition’s history for its 2025 anniversary
16. Catalogue of works by Dmitri Shostakovich: ‘Festive Overture’
17. Moscow Composers’ Union: Moscow Autumn programme
18. Radio Orpheus: differing accounts of the story behind ‘Festive Overture’