Restoration work on the 24.5-meter high statue, The Worker and the Peasant Woman, by Vera Mukhina, was launched in 2003. Moscow authorities originally said it would be back and fully restored in 2005, but later moved the date to 2010.
The iconic statue was made for the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937, where it was exhibited on a 37-meter high platform, but after it was returned to Moscow it was mounted on a 10-meter platform.
"It has been decided to elevate the statue to its historic height, as it was exhibited in Paris, i.e. at a height of 37.5 meters," said Valery Shevchuk, the head of the Moscow Committee on Cultural Heritage.
After the monument was exhibited in Paris its image was used in thousands of posters, cards, stamps and became the logo for the then-Soviet and now Russian film studio Mosfilm.
The statue, made from sheets of stainless steel, is a classic example of socialist realism art. The worker's arm holds aloft a hammer and the peasant woman a sickle - two primary symbols of the Soviet Union.
