Berlin wall's famous Honecker-Brezhnev kiss painting erased

Berlin, Mar 28 (ANI): The famous painting on the Berlin Wall, which depicted the kiss between East German leader Erich Honecker and his Soviet counterpart Leonid Brezhnev, has been erased as a part of a clean-up of the surviving sections of the wall.

The Berlin authorities remain unconcerned on the issue as the artist of the masterpiece, Dmitri Vrubel has been told: "You can always paint a new one."

Expressing anger at the authorities, Vrubel, a Moscow based artist said, "These barbarians! My painting has been destroyed."

"I have no problem with restoration, but I cannot simply paint a new picture like making a sandwich!" said Vrubel.

"They have sold postcards, teacups, coffee mugs, key ring holders around the world with this image on it and I didn't get a cent," he stormed.

The Telegraph reported that the painting was a star attraction of the East Side Gallery, a stretch of avant-garde murals painted on one of the last remaining stretches of the wall that divided the city for 28 years.

The gallery created in 1990 in celebration of the wall's collapse features artwork by artists all over the world. The artists had expressed their reactions to the November 9, 1989 event through painting.

Around 118 artists from 24 countries used the wall - the "anti-fascist protection barrier" in the argot of the socialist rulers of the German Democratic Republic - as a canvas upon which to paint their farewell to the regime, which erected it, back in 1961.

The wall is now compared to the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial as a must-see icon for tourists to the city.

As a part of the ongoing restoration project, many more paintings that have been mutilated by weather and pollution would be destroyed. (ANI)