The satirical mural depicting Communist dictators Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing on the lips with true Soviet-era ardour is one of the most famous and abiding images on what's left of Berlin's once infamous wall. This weekend, however, its painter was shocked to discover it had gone.

At the city's East Side Gallery, where scores of arresting murals cover one of the last surviving sections of the wall, there was grey concrete where only days ago the larger-than-life depiction stood. It had been a major tourist attraction since it appeared almost 20 years ago, painted by Dmitri Vrubel. The Russian artist said yesterday he was devastated to discover that his picture, called Brotherhood Kiss, had simply disappeared.

It emerged the mural's removal was intentional, done as part of an extensive and, it appears, Teutonically thorough renovation designed to smarten up the remains of the wall in time for the 20th anniversary of its historic fall this November.

Vrubel was not amused. He said he had only been made aware his mural had gone after receiving a cheque from the gallery offering €3,000 in compensation. He said he had been asked to "come back and paint another one".

The image derives from a photograph of the two leaders taken 1979. As a potent symbol of Communism's corruption and ultimate failure, the image has featured on coffee cups and T-shirts across Europe and beyond. "I have no problem with the East Side Gallery being renovated," Vrubel said, "but I can't simply come back and paint the same thing again; it would be a completely new picture."

However the East Side Gallery, which exhibits the works of some 117 artists from 21 countries on a 1,316m section of the wall, was adamant the painting had to go, together with most of the other murals. The gallery's spokesman, Kani Alavi, insisted the remains of the wall were being rapidly destroyed by the effects of exhaust fumes and rainwater and there was no option but to give the structure a radical overhaul.

"In the old days we used cheap paint," he said, pointing out that the Brotherhood Kiss had been in a state of advanc­ed decay and flaking off the wall. "To keep the wall we have to strip it of its murals with hot water and renovate the concrete behind them." He added that the artists were being invited to come back and repaint their works in special weatherproof colours that would ensure they were kept for posterity.