Mosaic - "Old Bendery" - Bender

Created by the Moldovan masters Mikhail Burya and Veceaslav Obukh already in 1966 – early by Moldovan standards - the mosaics preserved in the former Bendery bus station, now a clothing store, form a three-part ensemble: Old Bendery, New Bendery, and Red Square. Each panel presents distinct imagery yet remains visually connected through a unified color palette of light blue and yellow. On the left end wall, New Bendery depicts modern civic landmarks: the monument to Pavel Tkachenko (adopting the pseudonym Tcacenco during his time in Petrograd, nowadays St. Petersburg, during the revolution of 1917), the House of Culture named after him, the M. Gorky cinema, and the railway station. Tree-lined avenues and residential blocks are arranged in geometric grids, while the Bender bridge spans the Dniester River to the right, steel rising over patterned waves. The depiction of the statue to Tkachenko’s can also be found in Bender. Pavel Tcacenco was a Bolshevik activist born in the region of present-day Transnistria who moved to Bender at 14. He participated in the Russian Revolutions of February and October 1917, fought against the Russian anti-Bolshevik White forces before returning to Bender at the end of 1917. He lead underground communist and youth organizations in Bessarabia (Moldova) and participated in the Bender Uprising. While in exile he lobbied for the creation of a Moldovan autonomous territory on the left bank of the Dniester, and after the Soviet takeover that region indeed became the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast within the Ukrainian SSR. He was celebrated across Romania and Moldova following his execution by the Romanian secret police in 1926, though he was gradually erased from official discourse in Romania as Nicolae Ceaușescu’s cult of personality painted him as the hero of the communist youth – a clash with Tkachenko’s legacy. On the opposite end, Old Bendery presents a panoramic view of the historic town. Silhouettes include the Bender fortress walls, domed churches, and residential quarters that I imagine represent the local style of houses; as well as trees, a sail boat on the river Dniester, and an oxen-pulled cart. On the mezzanine wall, Red Square introduces Moscow’s Kremlin towers, the Lenin Mausoleum, and surrounding structures, arranged in angular blocks of ceramic tile. This composition extends the ensemble beyond local identity, connecting Bendery’s urban fabric to the Soviet center. This once again shows the relative closeness of what is today Transnistria to Moscow, as it was a nominally Moldovan autonomous republic dominated by Ukrainians and Russians rather than Moldovans. Years before Moldova “proper” was invaded during the Second World War and incorporated into the USSR, the left bank of the river was a purely Soviet institution. All three mosaics are executed in Florentine-style and remain in excellent condition, having survived the conversion of the bus station into a modern clothing store.