If you walk around Patriarch's Ponds, you will meet Krylov by the water. The fable writer sits in contemplation, while around him on pedestals are arranged the bronze Quartet, a Monkey with glasses, an Elephant, and a Moska. The monument was unveiled in 1976, created by sculptors Andrei Drevins and Daniil Mitlyansky. Few of the passersby know that in 1938, the name Drevins sounded like a sentence.

The sculptor's father, Alexander Drevins (Aleksandrs Drevinьš), was born in 1889 in the Latvian town of Venden and studied in Riga. During World War I, he found himself in Moscow along with a stream of refugees. Here, the Latvian painter became one of the notable masters of the avant-garde: he taught at VKhUTEMAS, painted expressive landscapes of Altai and Ural, where color seems to shape form by itself.
His wife, Nadezhda Udaltsova, had already gone through the Parisian school of cubism by that time. Together with Lyubov Popova, she studied at the academy 'La Palette' and later became part of Malevich's circle. Around 1920, Drevins and Udaltsova got married, and in 1921, their son Andrei was born. They traveled together for studies, exhibited together, and both fell victim to the campaign against 'formalism.'

In January 1938, Drevins was arrested, and on February 26, he was shot at the Butovo firing range. Udaltsova did not know the truth about his fate for almost twenty years. All this time, she kept his canvases, raised their son, and waited for her husband's rehabilitation in 1957. She herself died in 1961.
Andrei became a sculptor. His Krylov, wise, ironic, and a bit weary, looks at the pond along which people stroll. They are unaware of how much is left unsaid in this bronze. A fable always speaks in allegory, and perhaps that is why the son of the executed artist was given Krylov.