Petition aims to remove Moscow sculpture from Prague metro station

Prague's Anděl metro station was rebranded from its original name of Moskva (Moscow) shortly after the Velvet Revolution, but a sculpture bearing the original name has stood at the location since the 1980s. Now, a new petition spearheaded by a 16-year-old student seeks to change that.

Jan Boháč, the petition's author, deems it inappropriate that the Prague station still features the Moskva sculpture and an inscription denoting Soviet-Czech friendship amidst the Russian war in Ukraine. His efforts come a decade after the Praha není Moskva campaign put a spotlight on the sculpture while protesting then-President Miloš Zeman's perceived pro-Putin foreign policy.

Prague's Anděl station, built in the early 1980s, was originally named Moskevská as the Czech capital paid homage to the Soviet team overseeing the work. A Prazhskaya (Prague) station was opened in Moscow at around the same time, and still bears its original name despite recent efforts to change it.

The Prague station was renamed in early 1990 following the fall of the Iron Curtain. However, a sculpture representing collaboration between engineers from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia has stood in place ever since. Earlier efforts to remove the sculpture didn't land, but the new petition could find greater support in light of current events in Ukraine.

"We, the undersigned, do not want communist elements openly supporting the Soviet Union to be in the Anděl metro station in Prague," reads the new petition. "Considering the current Russian aggression in Ukraine [...] such decoration is completely inappropriate."

"This may, for example for tourists or refugees from Ukraine, jeopardize the clearly defined foreign policy of the Czech Republic, to the extent that, for example, foreigners may not be sure whether they are in a pro-Western country or a Russian enclave."

"We consider the inscription 'Moscow Station, built in 1985 jointly by Prague and Moscow metro builders in honor of Czechoslovak-Soviet friendship' to be particularly inappropriate. In our opinion, this inscription directly and openly points to a friendship that actually never existed, but it definitely does not exist today. We want nothing to do with the dictatorial regime of the Russian Federation."

The petition also points to recent actions taken by the city of Prague to remove or rename other Russian-affiliated elements. A statue of Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev was removed from Prague 6 in 2020, while the city's Koněvova Street was renamed to Hartigova last year.

City officials, meanwhile, have yet to take the new petition seriously. "This is a historical part of the area, i.e. also part of the station's architecture and art, and Prague Public Transport Company does not follow the cancel culture route," Vít Hofman, spokesperson for the City of Prague, told iDnes.cz.