An archaeological evaluation undertaken in 2004 in Baillet-en-France, north of Paris, unearthed remains of the sculptured frieze representing the peoples of the USSR which adorned the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 International Exhibition on Art and Technology in Modern Life. This discovery led us to track the astonishing trajectory of this emblematic monument, an example of socialist realism and an icon of the USSR. Upon the dismantlement of the 1937 exhibition, the monument's two-section propylaeum, displaying reliefs and statues sculpted by Josef Chaikov, was given to the "Metallos" (Union fraternelle des metallos), the union of metalworkers of the CGT (Confederation Generale du Travail), and taken to the union's newly opened leisure park at Baillet-en-France. In the abrupt political changes that followed, the monument was smashed to pieces in 1941, rediscovered after the Liberation in 1944, and then buried in an icehouse, where it lay forgotten until 2004. The study of these unexpected remains with their iconic and iconoclastic destinies enables us to better understand the various aspects of their creation (origins, techniques, iconography); meanwhile, a new career has awaited these Stalinist relics, as a museum exhibit but also as a model, monumentally reconstructed in Moscow in 2010.
