Deputy mayor to propose removal of sculpture in Anděl metro commemorating Czech-Soviet friendship

Deputy Mayor of Prague Zdeněk Hřib plans to propose to the city council on Monday that the bronze wall sculpture with the inscription "Moscow-Prague", located in the Czech capital's Anděl metro station, be removed or modified. The deputy mayor wrote on social media site X on Sunday that it was "high time" for something to be done about the controversial sculpture, given the Soviet Union's occupation of Czechoslovakia at the time that the station was commissioned and Russia's similar behaviour now towards Ukraine.

The sculpture pays tribute to the Soviet engineers who helped with the construction of the Prague metro and who played a significant role in the design of the station, which was formerly called "Moskevská" when it opened in 1985. It got its current name, Anděl, not long after the fall of the communist regime, in February 1990, but the sculpture remained even though the station has been reconstructed several times since.