The historic kiss is now 35 years old. Ten years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in October 1979, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev and General Secretary of the SED Central Committee Erich Honecker sealed the brotherly love between the USSR and the GDR with a long and strong kiss.
Since then, it has become fashionable among leaders of different nations to kiss each other on the basis of converging political courses. Although the idea is not new: in ancient Rome, the host would give the guest wine from his own mouth to show that it was not poisoned.
The kiss of Brezhnev and Honecker became world-famous thanks to Dmitry Vrubel's graffiti on the Berlin Wall. The artist copied the 'subject' from a photograph by Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper correspondent Barbara Klemm, taken during the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the GDR. She, a representative of the Western (!) press, would never have been allowed into the anniversary where the socialist leaders were kissing, but... a lucky coincidence helped.
Inspired by the preparation for the celebration, the organizers did not clarify which Frankfurt the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine is published in, deciding that it was Frankfurt an der Oder. And the irreparable happened: a Western photojournalist from Frankfurt am Main penetrated the holy of holies of the socialist camp. By the time the mistake was discovered, it was too late: Barbara Klemm's photograph instantly became a symbol of the era.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Brezhnev was long dead and Honecker's regime had also passed away, artist Dmitry Vrubel set about creating his most famous work – the 'Brotherly Kiss'. This wall 'canvas', framed by the inscription 'Lord! Help me to survive among this deadly love', can still be admired in the German capital. The piece of wall stands in its old place, within the city limits, so to speak, as a keepsake of the vicissitudes of political fate.
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