The Russian artist Lena Hades is protesting against the construction of a six-lane highway in Moscow that threatens the grounds of the 18th-century Kuskovo Palace, a country house and estate built by Count Petr Borisovich Sheremetev, the head of one of imperial Russia’s richest noble families. Other opponents include émigré descendants of the Sheremetevs as well as members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
Last month, Hades, who lives near the park, staged a protest performance there, fixing portraits of the Sheremetev family on to more than 100 trees, symbolically “returning” them to the family.
Earlier this year Russia’s culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, lifted cultural heritage restrictions on Kuskovo’s grounds, allowing construction to proceed. In June, hundreds of trees were cut down in the park to make way for the road.
