"THE THIRD ROME" The collection of Rushan Khvesuk, "Alfa-Bank" Chairman of board
1997, canvas, relief pastes, acrylic, golden foil, 170x10 cm.

When this work was firstly exhibited in Manege in 1997 I was asked many times - why the wolf is double-headed? Why shouldn’t it? - I answered. I crossbreeded the Capitoline wolf with the Russian - Byzantian - eagle. But the eagle is a symbol, a coat of arms, isnt’ it? - So the wolf is a coat of arms, a symbol. And the creature that emerged seems to be even more expressive than the double-headed mutant bird, at least it corresponds more to the notion "the Third Rome": the ephemeral symbolic building with a spiral cone on its top looking like Saint Basil’s cathedral cupola, surrounded by the crashed wings of Stalin’s legacy, open to the sky and the future XXI century - this is how Moscow was fancied in the end of the past century.