Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (Russian: Выставка достижений народного хозяйства, Vystavka dostizheniy narodnogo hozyaystva, abbreviated as VDNKh or VDNH, Russian: ВДНХ, pronounced [vɛ dɛ ɛn xa]) is a permanent general purpose trade show and amusement park in Moscow, Russia.
[1] Between 1991 and 2014, it was also called the All-Russia Exhibition Centre (Russian: Всероссийский выставочный центр, romanized: Vserossiyskiy vystavochnyy tsentr).
An existing site (then known as Ostankino Park, a country territory recently incorporated into the city limits), was approved in August 1935.
The master plan by Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky was approved in April 1936, and the first show season was announced to begin in July 1937 and was designed as a "City of Exhibitions" with streets and public spaces, which was very common in the 1930s.
However, plans did not materialise, and three weeks before the deadline Joseph Stalin personally postponed the exhibition by one year (to August 1938).
In 1959 the park was renamed Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (Russian: Выставка достижений народного хозяйства, Vystavka dostizheniy narodnovo khozyaystva) or ВДНХ/VDNKh.
During Soviet times, each year VDNKh hosted more than 300 national and international exhibitions and many conferences, seminars and meetings of scientists and industry professionals.
The sculpture, which reaches 25 meters toward the sky, was designed by Vera Mukhina and originally crowned the 35-meter-tall Soviet pavilion at the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937).
New museum and exhibition spaces were opened, a Landscape Park was created, and objects of cultural heritage were carried out, public electric transport was launched.
The Worker and Kolkhoz Woman sculpture was originally created to crown the Soviet pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.
The organizers had placed the Soviet and Nazi pavilions facing each other across the main pedestrian boulevard at the Trocadéro on the north bank of the Seine.