"Children are the Victims of Adult’s Vices”

                                                                                                                        created by Mihail Chemiakin.

 

Warning. You can skip this blog if you are looking for my usual humor and whit. 

 

"Children are the Victims of Adult's Vices" was a to the City of Moscow. It is meant to encourage the fight against global evil.

 

The Russian man started it. I was looking at a sculpture so powerful, I still feel it will change my life. The man in his mid 60’s, shook his head as he walked by and said, “It’s not good. He has done many good pieces in NY and other places. But this is not good.” I was shocked. I had had the exact opposite reaction.

The sculpture stands as a series of 13 figures, that have human bodies with animal heads surrounding a young girl and boy. The dark characters are a bit scary and look like they might come from a nightmare, but children in the park were running up to look at it. The statues had names like

 

   Drug addiction
   Prostitution
   Alcoholism
   War
   Poverty
   Child labor
   Irresponsibility
   Products of violence
   Theft

 

The centered figure was named Indifference with hands covering the eyes and the heart. Sadly enough the entire piece had to be enclosed by a tall black cast iron fence and locked off at night due to vandalism.

After trying to capture it in photos, we got back on our bikes to leave, I couldn’t help myself from stopping to talk to this stranger. “So you don’t like it? Why?” Again he told me, “It is like madness in his mind, his imagination.” I gave him my impression, “It is good. It has a strong message; adults need to hear. When you are indifferent to drug addiction or alcoholism, if you say, these are adults that make their problems, you are indifferent. You hurt the children effected by it.” No response from him. “Likewise, poverty. When you are indifferent to poverty, you forget that children are effected by poverty through no fault of their own.” Then I found myself starting to cry. Geoff waited a safe distance away. The Russian man’s wife and kid approached. He repeated he didn’t like it. “Well, your son liked it.”  I rode off before the tears building up in my eyes poured out of me.

​

Since leaving the sculpture in Moscow, I have thought about indifference. You must do something, anything you can, when faced with the evils of man. Russia needs these statues and will need them even more in the years to come. Evil will inevitably follow Putin’s absolute power. When I get home, I think the message will stay with me as I direct my energies post working world and look at what I can do for the children of the world.