Bronze horses on St. Petersburg's Anichkov Bridge will be given a washing

Specialists from Intarsia, a company that does construction and restoration work, have volunteered to clean the famous sculptural group of horses that graces St. Petersburg's Anichkov Bridge.

According to Intarsia's head specialist Vladimir Sorin, "monuments in the Northern Capital must be cleaned once every year, and there'll be 10 times less restoration work to do." Four sculptural groups authored by the famous Baron Pyotr von Klodt and entitled "The Taming of Horses" were in fact installed in the dirtiest part of the city -- in the central Nevsky Prospekt -- and suffer badly from bird dung and exhaust fumes. The fact that bypassers won't leave the monument alone and often climb on top of it and leave balls of chewing gum here and there only makes things worse.

The task facing Intarsia is to clean the bronze horses with a special metal-friendly organic solution, clean away the chewing gum with a heat-blower, and wash away dirt and sand with fresh water.

Intarsia will also cover all the cleaning expenses.