At the beginning of September 2001, a pair of foundation stones appeared on the square of the Kievsky railway station in Moscow, on which it was knocked out that a fountain with a sculptural composition would be created in this place.

Exactly one year has passed and on September 15, 2002 the official opening of the complex took place. Initially, the project was completely different. But in early 2002, the Brussels City Hall presented Moscow with a composition by the Belgian avant-garde sculptor Olivier Strebell.

As a result, the fountain and the engineering filling were designed by Yuri Platonov. And it is unique in its own way: halogen lamps are used to form pure white light, and the “color” is formed by LED lamps of three colors – blue, yellow and green. For each water jet there are from one to several three-color LED lamps.

The fountain itself is also not easy: the outer diameter of the cascade bowl is 50 meters, 354 nozzles are used to form water jets, the engineering communications hidden under the fountain consist of 3.5 km of pipes.

For the sculptural composition, Olivier Strebel used the famous ancient Greek myth, in which Zeus fell in love with the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor Europa, sneaked into her chambers in the form of a bull and took her to the island of Crete. Hence the official name of the complex – “The Abduction of Europa”. Although in the interweaving of metal pipes, this plot can be discerned only with a very good imagination.

Interesting Facts

During the Renaissance, the story of the abduction of Europa was extremely popular – dozens of paintings were written on this topic.

The presentation of such a gift to Moscow from one of the European capitals at the beginning of the 2000s did not surprise anyone.

It is interesting – would the Belgians make such a gift now, in the second half of the tenths?