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Moscow art group scraps Eye of Sauron light installation project

"Unfortunately, we are forced to suspend the Eye of Sauron project," the Svechenie art group said on its Facebook page

Moscow's skyscraper EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

Moscow's skyscraper

© EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. A Moscow art group, which planned to celebrate the release of The Hobbit's final part with a giant installation of Sauron's all-seeing eye on a skyscraper, said on Wednesday that they had to give up the idea following public outcry.

"Unfortunately, we are forced to suspend the Eye of Sauron project," the Svechenie art group said on its Facebook page.

The art group said the installation was planned as a tribute to millions of fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy books and no one expected such negative public reaction.

"The project has no religious or political context," the company said, adding that they did not mean to hurt anyone's feelings.

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a senior Orthodox Church official, condemned the installation on Tuesday as a demonic symbol. "Sauron was Tolkien's symbol of evil forces. Many people will not like it (the eye) glowing above the city," he said, warning that the installation would bring Moscow nothing good.

The Moscow authorities said that the project would be scrapped if it turned out to be a promotion of Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies."

The Eye of Sauron was supposed to be switched above Moscow City business center on Thursday.

The all-seeing eye first appeared in "The Fellowship of the Ring," the first part of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien. In the trilogy, the eye was engulfed in flames and stationed atop a dark fortress from which Sauron kept his watch over Middle-earth.

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