But a genuine Shadr survived. The sculptor had made a smaller-than-life-size plasterversion of his original statue, and in the 1950s his widow had it cast in bronze for Moscow's Tretyakov, the largest repository of Russian art.

There, in a storage vault last spring, Ms. Anikeyeva's rowing association tracked down the obscure sculpture and adopted the oar girl as its symbol.

'Nobody was sure what she'd look like,' the former rowing champ says. 'I remember a statue of a girl wearing clothes. So it was a true surprise to me, to all of us, to find her naked.'

A husband-and-wife team of sculptors was commissioned to make a 6-foot-7-inch copy. She was cast in polymer concrete and installed this week in Gorky Park, where she will remain as a symbol of the park's revival.

'She's very beautiful,' Ms. Anikeyeva says, adding that she welcomes the oar girl as both a reminder of Soviet athletic feats and a rebuke of Communist mores.

'To denigrate our past, our victories, would be destructive,' she says. 'But we want to show that we now live in a different country. The notion that she must be dressed -- that's changed.'

The shift is reflected in a racier side of the regatta, an annual event on the Moscow River.

To hype the competition and draw a hip, new-Russian audience, the rowing association hired a veteran Playboy photographer to produce a photo exhibit of seven leggy Russian actresses and other celebrities holding oars in various poses. All the models are clothed, some just barely.

'It's vulgar,' says Ms. Marts, flipping through the photos in her Tretyakov office. 'I feel sad for Shadr.'