Forbidden monument to the heroes of Bulgakov

If you drive along the outer side of the Garden Ring from Taganka towards the Kursk railway station, then almost reaching Yauza you can see an unusual Monument to the heroes of Bulgakov.
Lovers, a strange car, a rook driver. These are fragments of a monument to the writer Mikhail Bulgakov and the heroes of his book The Master and Margarita. In the late 90s, they wanted to put it on the Patriarch’s Ponds, but they never did it because of public protests. The Master and Margarita as a separate monument also did not take root.
Sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov made an unusual monument dedicated to Mikhail Bulgakov and the heroes of his famous book for the Patriarch’s Ponds.

According to the author’s idea, a 12-meter bronze primus fountain, statues of the Master, Margarita, the cat Behemoth, Levi Matthew, Pontius Pilate and Yeshua were to be placed on the bank of the pond. The latter had to, as it were, walk on water from the writer himself, looking at his heroes.


However, the idea remained in the project – the public did not accept the idea. Many scolded the primus, sculptures and the idea itself, calling the project “devilish”.
According to another idea, the monument was to be erected on Sparrow Hills, and it was planned to replace the primus stove with a car. On it, the Master and Margarita, as it were, leave Moscow.

True, here nothing went further than the plan: the Orthodox Church did not like that such a monument would be adjacent to the St. Andrew’s Monastery, and the public was seething again. On ideas, everything went quiet.
Since not so long ago, parts of the failed monument stand near Rukavishnikov’s art space “Sleeve” on Zemlyanoy Val. Before that, the Master and Margarita had to wander – before this place they changed several locations.


