Dali
Meet our new employee, the Green Elephant. Or, more officially, Triumphant Elephant aka Eléphant de triomphe, an original sculpture by Salvador Dali. Kaspersky Lab bought it in February, but it took two months to transport it from London to Moscow, due to multiple issues associated with importing a masterpiece of art.
Finally, all the twists and turns are over, and the Elephant triumphantly (naturally, he has no other options) stands in the lobby of our Moscow office, where anyone can enjoy his design.
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With an imposing stature of 265 cm (8.6 ft), visitors won’t be able to miss our long-legged elephant friend or the trumpeting angel on his back. Take a look:
You may wonder what those oddly bent people are doing near the base; they are taking a photo of this inscription:
Our elephant is #4 of a total of eight made by Dali for sale. There were also six extra elephants made as artist proofs and for personal usage (art critics suddenly switch to French in this place, saying épreuves d’artiste and épreuves de fonderie). The Elephant is made of bronze, but patination has given it an emerald green color, which happens to perfectly fit the corporate colors of Kaspersky Lab. Plus, elephants were always a symbol of the future (as well as victory and triumph) for Dali, so the Kaspersky team will definitely make good use of the Elephant as a lucky charm and a source of inspiration.
Speaking of inspiration, our new friend began handing it out almost immediately as we went through the unboxing and mounting process; just look at the number of workers watching and photographs being taken (keep in mind that this was a Saturday; almost every employee is at home):
Of course, we can’t blame people for their curiosity – just getting the Elephant here was a challenging engineering task. A special wooden box had to be made just for this one trip; it was even equipped with tripping and impact detectors for added precaution. The box was actually the biggest one in the Russian customs warehouse and required a special loading machine to operate. After all of that, it barely fit through our office doors!
Now that it’s all set, the Elephant has began his daily routine at Kaspersky. Come visit us and take a look for yourself!
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