“News About Sputnik”
Sculpture
Carved by master V. A. Reshetnikov from Tobolsk,
1950s
This expressive carving is dedicated to the global sensation: the launch of the
first Earth satellite in 1957 by USSR.
A team of reindeer are floating over the
endless snow desert. In the sled, pulled
by the fast triplet (troika), there were
two people, hurrying ahead, to pass on the
delightful news: The Soviet Union had
launched the first satellite into the space!
The bone carver most likely imagined
that those two were the first ones in their
far-off land, who received the telegram
carrying the “cosmic” news and were
hurrying to bring this news to their neighbours.
It is a simple scene, but sculpted
with such a feeling and grace, that it
arouses the heartiest of emotions.
The world's first satellite was launched
by the USSR on October 4, 1957 from
the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Starting on this date, the Space Age
began and the Russian word “sputnik”
readily made it into all the languages of
the world! The sputnik looked like a ball
(sphere) of 58 centimetres in diameter
and weighed 83.6 kilograms.
Sputnik PS-1
“News About Sputnik” is a striking example of the fusion of Tobolsk bone
carving school and principles of socialist realism which profoundly influenced
its style. Craftsmen came to know of the “new trends” in the 1930s, when
Siberia was actively developed. The craft itself flourished again in the city of
Tobolsk during the second half of the 19th century when bone carvers mainly
engaged in the making of utensils such as knives, jewellery boxes and brooches.
It took them a while before they “matured” enough to be able to create social
realism-inspired sculptures depicting historical figures and their contemporaries.
Tobolsk
The Soviet Union
had launched the world's
first satellite into space!