Make Way for Ducklings Statues

10.07.2015 21:48 Просмотров: 46 Печать | E-mail

This unusual monument has been fixed up in the park near the Novodevichy Convent: a bronze mother-duck takes eight bronze ducklings to the pond.

The duck is called Mrs. Mallard, and she came to the Moscow Park from the United States of America. There, in the Boston Central Park, there is exactly the same statutory group — the duck family is stalking along the road to the pond led by the mother-duck

The author of the American sculpture and its Russian copy is Nancy Schön, an old fan of the writer Robert McCloskey. That was he who in 1941 wrote and made his own illustrations to the children story “Give Way to Ducklings!”. The story tells how the ducks Mr. and Mrs. Mallard nested in the Boston Park, brought out nestlings and reared them together. One day the mother-duck decided to take her kids for a walk to the pond but she had to cross a busy street, and then a kind policeman Michael blocked the traffic to make the duck family continue its way.

The book was so popular with the young Americans that it was decided to perpetuate the story in bronze. And in 1991, during the formal visit of the USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev to the US, the heart-piercing bronze family captured the attention of Gorbachev’s wife who was taking a walk in the Boston Park with the first lady of the USA Barbara Bush. During the return visit to Russia Barbara Bush presented the Muscovites with a copy of that sculpture — and just as in Boston, it was decided to locate the stature group in a green park with a pondlet. Ever since, the bronze ducks have become the Moscow sightseeing attraction.

Address: Park "Novodevichy Ponds"