In the small gardens where Ulitsa Bolshaya Yakimanka branches off from Ulitsa Bolshaya Polyana is a statue of Georgi Dimitrov. Dimitrov was a Bulgarian communist who served as both the head of Comintern and the first Communist leader of Bulgaria. Throughout his political career Dimitrov remains a staunch ally of Stalin, however when he died in 1949 in a sanatorium outside Moscow, there were nevertheless rumours he was poisoned on the orders of the Soviet leader. This statue was unveiled after his death and Ulitsa Bolshaya Yakimanka was also renamed in his honour during the Soviet years.