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"Games of the XXII Olympiad – Moscow" (1979) by Alexander Georgievich Ksenita is a visual pledge of unity. Created just months before the 1980 Summer Olympics and on the eve of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the poster captures a moment when the USSR was still trying to present itself as a peaceful, modern, and globally engaged superpower.
The composition is clean but charged. Five stylised hands—red, green, black, yellow, and blue—arc inward in a circular motion. These are the official Olympic colours, each one corresponding to a continent. They don’t form fists or point fingers. They gesture openly, suggesting peace, solidarity, and international participation.
They also guide the eye toward the centre, where the 1980 Moscow Olympics logo anchors the image—a section of a running track rising into an architectural silhouette typical of Moscow, topped with a red communist five-pointed star. It’s an unmistakable symbol of Soviet power.
The timing, however, alters the tone. Created just before the Soviet army entered Afghanistan, the poster is now inseparable from the Cold War tensions that defined the 1980 Olympics. More than 60 countries would boycott the Games. What was meant to be a universal celebration turned into a split-screen: Soviet spectacle on one side, international silence on the other.
Born in 1951 in Rostov-on-Don, Ksenita received his formal education at the M.B. Grekov Rostov Art School (1970–1974), where he studied painting under Victor Grigoryevich Len. He further developed his expertise at the Kharkov Art and Industrial Institute (1976–1981), specialising in industrial graphics and packaging design.
Since 1981, Ksenita has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions. His artistic legacy is tied to his work at the "Agitplakat Don" publishing house, where his posters addressed critical social and political themes of the late Soviet period.
