Mosaic - The Awakening - Mocra

The crown jewel of Rybnitsa, Transnistria, and perhaps all of Moldova. A mosaic of some 110 square metres covering the end wall of the Mocra House of Culture, made in 1977 by I. Tăburța and A. Kuzmin. Worked in dark red, silver-grey, white and black tesserae. A monumental figure dominates the upper half, crowned with a flame, arms braced as he frees himself from his shackles. Around it the field breaks into angular shards carrying episodes from Imperial Russia’s history: a city of towers and cranes at the upper left, torch-bearing figures below, a wheel and a stylised flowering tree at the centre, smaller groups with instruments and machinery along the lower edge. The subject is the peasant uprising of 1905 and what followed it, the collapse of the old order and the first years of collectivisation, with the tree standing for the future. A separate panel beside the entrance repeats the palette in looser curved bands and flame forms. Features on the PMR’s tourism website, it’s described as socialist realist, though the fragmentation and near-abstraction of the field belong more to the graphic language of the 1970s. Fortunately, the artwork remains in good condition.