poor art?

PERMM is currently showing some Russian Povera work -  the deliberate use of 'poor' materials, associated with the idea of authenticity and deep rather than surface beauty. The full show has been to Milan: what has returned are mainly the 'skeletons' of Olga and Alexander Florensky, based on the raw wood and metal of argricultural and other working equipment. Not my favourite kind of work, but well curated and effective in the space - the interior is much more a proper gallery than the exterior implies.

For a sense of the debate read Yelena Fedotova, Moscow-based art critic, in her piece 'In praise of little red men: cultural revolution in Perm'.

To enter one of Perm's Public Art competitions go here.

getting on with life

Then there is the city itself. Quite wealthy through trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, the centre of Perm is laid out on a grid, with what were mainly two-storey wooden and brick built mansions, now fallen into decay. Around this are masses of poorly built and now also crumbling Soviet housing blocks. Still, it feels a lively city (for some reason I kept being reminded of Birmingham) with - in this last autumn moments - many people out and about.

What I saw actually happening was some renovation going on to some of the older brick buildings, and a small amount of miscellaneous additions of street furniture and public art. Hardly enough to scratch the surface of general shabbiness and dereliction, but just enough to make people cross. 

oww!

Managed to bash into something sharp sticking out of the wall, swerving to avoid a drunken woman asleep on my flat stairs, minor injury but oww! As my friends know I am pretty clumsy anyway so have bumped and grazed myself across many of the world's greatest cities.  But Moscow is definitely hazardous - I have also torn my skirt twice, on a broken metal gutter and a  badly finished window sill.

Which has got me back to a subject we have talked about a lot  recently;  that nobody here thinks it is the job of governments or other organisations - public or private - to make life easier for people.  Unlike that linking of welfare and state (at least historically) in England, the state here is only about keeping order, not often a particularly caring business. So whether in the design of processes, objects, or places, little or no thought is applied to enabling the comfort or ease of ordinary people.

And I have been wondering if this explains something about the (to me)  passive attitude towards those who act without consideration in public - for example, pushing in front of an elderly person on the metro, or driving their cars dangerously fast. Nobody seems to get angry. It is as if, just as with the state, there is no expectation that people should behave considerately to others ( although of course lots of people behave very well, with generosity and kindness of spirit).

border guards day

So, each sector of the army has its own celebratory day every year - well the Day of the Border Guards was this week (starting quite politely in this photo) but has extended over the weekend into a city full of young men in states of considerable drunkenness, offering many types of manly displays, excessive humour, more drinking and lots of laying about in a stupor.  If you want to see how things go, check out these photos.

And I don't know why it reminded me, but the Aeroexpress train has been running a brilliant ad recently, from a website called - subtly - get-hard.ru.

10-of-the-best: no. 2 State Kremlin Palace

In the late 1950s and early 60s Khrushchev built a massive, modernist, glass and concrete 'palace' for communist party meetings, right within the historic Kremlin. The scale is monumental, with seating for 6,000 people, and not surprisingly the building is not well-liked, given that a considerable part of an older Russian heritage was destroyed to enable its construction.

But I love it. This is not so much because of the building design itself (although there are some fabulously classic Soviet murals) but more about the sheer scale of the whole 'mass' experience. I first visited in the 1970s to see the Bolshi Ballet perform, and was literally swept away; first by the huge crowds pouring down symmetrical sets of stairs to divest themselves of coats; and then by the same crowds moving upwards to the main concert hall itself.

This experience is repeated at the interval; this time everyone surges upwards to the largest room I have ever seen, where buffet-style, these 6,000 people simultaneously snack on Russian champagne and slices of bread and cheese/caviar/meat (at least that's what it feels like). Have visited much more recently, and enjoyed it in much the same way.

I should note that none of my Russian friends and colleagues seem to share this same enthusiasm, nor many of my English workmates; that seeing an event here is not cheap; and that it tends to the extremely popularist - right now they are running Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance. But, well, to me, attending an event here is still a great way to capture something of the country's Soviet past.  The proper post-Soviet name is the State Kremlin Palace (GKD/гкд in Russian), although most people still know it as the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. Moscow-in-your-pocket is an easy place to start to see what's on and this is usually a good site for buying tickets.

One offs: number one

This is the only set of re-cycling bins I have seen anywhere in Moscow - when I walked past them with a Russian colleague he laughed out loud. I know it is not a popular pastime here, but there must be more.....

christmas time again

And whilst I am doing GUM, just thought you might like to see the Christmas decorations. Different from last year. Just.

wedding jam

GUM is one of the particular places of choice for wedding parties to go to have their photographs taken. I don't know why this Saturday was so popular, but there were so many different groups they kept bumping into each other. Very enjoyable to watch.

That special thing

I already know what it is that represents Moscow for me, as I come to the end of this first year.

This is mainly because I keep taking pictures. Of those painted patches over graffiti you see everywhere. I like the care with which it is done, the oddly decorative patterns the painters-over make, and the complete impossibility of getting any sort of colour match.

park again

In one corner of Sokolniki park there was dancing to rather miscellaneous 'big band' type favourites (played by a few elderly men and sometimes by a machine). The average age was probably 70, and much eying up of possible partners was in evidence.

The dancing, through, was a bit haphazard and it was difficult to ignore the more eccentric individuals involved, even whilst recognising that mostly everyone was having a good time. I found myself assuming that this kind of communal dancing (as with the tango sessions I managed to miss the other week) is left over from Soviet times and will fade away with this generation..

On smoothness

The thing I have been trying to get my head around is about how London (particularly its cultural scene) has a certain smoothness and slickness which Moscow doesn't have. This could be called a type of professionalism which makes coherence and consistency central to its understanding of itself; and/or it could be capitalist society, which exploits every aspect of consumption to generate lots of different goods and services for us to buy.

A typical street cleaners' kit, shown here, is a good example. Brushes are invariably made of twigs; cleaners carts of old prams or trolleys with plastic buckets or boxes tied on with string. Why buy a plastic broom, or a pre-designed dustbin cart? Well why indeed, except of course in London that is what the street cleaners have (whether contracted publicly or privately).

Another example is luncheon vouchers (I have also had post-it notes as cloakroom tickets). We used to get these at work; and each month someone would make photocopies and cut them out individually with scissors. But I can't really explain why I find this odd.

that special something

Very aware that I am leaving Moscow next week and going back to London for most of the summer. Of course really excited to be seeing my daughter, relatives and friends, and to be spending a decent amount of time at home; but also find myself trying to pin down the things I will miss. Sometimes it feels as if Soviet times haven't really gone away, like when a tram goes by full of sleepy army recruits, or amid those stand-up picnics in the park, or walking through my 'typical' high-rise neighbourhood. Then there is the way the lifts tend to be sturdy but not smooth or quiet and all repairs haphazard rather than effective.

But there are also what seem to be truly contemporary moments; such as the glam young women in the highest heels, tightest shortest dresses, brightest colours and the most labelled accessories; or the extraordinary array of buildings under construction which cannot even be contained by the term 'eclectic' and have led me to think hard about what I mean when I say something is ugly. There is the energy of new cultural possibilities, of new things starting all the time, usually without warning, publicity or long lead-in times.

So, even though I don't want to reduce this place to simple stereotypes, I do seem to be trying to select a special something, that sums up my first (almost) year in this country and city. For which, all suggestions welcome....

fireworks time (at a distance)

After a sunny day - and I still can't deal with the idea that Moscow is very hot in the summer so I now have sunburn - we are in the middle of a cracking thunderstorm with black clouds and torrential rain.

But, because I wanted to share, I got a very wet arm by sticking my little camera out of the balcony window, to bring you this snap of the Victory Day fireworks. Pretty difficult to see I know, so you will just have to believe me (and imagine for yourself the splashes of reds and greens as well as whites, and the loud bangs and the drunken singing going on all around.)

veterans

What was inspiring - and also sobering - was the presence of many elderly uniformed and be-medalled veterans in the crowd. Victory Day (День Победы Den Pobedy) commemorates those who died in Great Patriotic War/WWII and celebrates survivors and veterans. People carry flowers - mainly carnations - to give to any veterans they see. Sobering both because it is a reminder that in what became the Soviet Union (USSR) an unbelievable number of people - 26.6 million - lost their lives in that war. And because here are individuals who witnessed the regimes of both Hitler and Stalin, as well as the more recent upheavals of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin. Hard to imagine what lives like these have been like.

The photographer, James Hill, has been taking portraits of veterans on Victory Day over the last 4 years. He currently has an exhibition of this work at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) until May 23 2010, as part of the current Moscow Photobiennale. For some examples click here.

crowd scenes

What I did see was lots of crowd anticipation at the beginning- and also people leaving, packing up flags and instruments and things at the end. The atmosphere was terrific, everyone relaxed in the sun and having a good time. And every type of Moscovite, from elderly gentlemen dressed up in ancient dark suits and homburg hats, through to young skateboarding dudes, women tottering along on their high heels in hot-pants with children in tow, plenty of families and - most surprising to me (which shows just how it easy it is to imagine the stereotypical russian as a shapka wearing, black coated, slightly depressive winter type of person ) - lots of people in sleeveless tees, shorts, flip-flops and even hawaiian shirts.

missed it!

Well, a beautiful sunny day today with a clear sky and a light breeze, so perfect weather for Victory Day. Embarrassed to admit to it, but I missed the parade itself. First there were control checkpoints for getting close all along the Tverskaya route; and then having blagged my way into Red Square I managed somehow to find myself beyond the cordon again (due to a being distracted by nipping into Zara in GUM probably!) And then, by the time I made my way back to Pushkin Square, everything had already gone by.

So I have to watch the Russia Today video on YouTube like you ( whilst taking note of an - accurate - comment posted beneath that "RT really did a horrible job on this one. Instead of a bunch of un-informed amateur commentators they should have just TRANSLATED what was said in the loud speakers for everyone to hear at the parade".)

City bingo 5: actually, beyond a joke

Another relatively common sight - a disabled sticker prominently displayed in a completely incorrect situation (e.g. as here, with steps). What are they thinking? Also many, random, pavement markings in yellow, with no logic in any way connected to being visually impaired. As the guide book says, Moscow is not a place that makes things easy for disabled people.

spring- cleaning

One of Mayor Luzhkov's proposed subbotniki (volunteer public working days) for spring cleaning the city - the 17th April - seems to have come and gone without much activity, at least not in my neck of the woods. But then, around here everything is already looking very spruced up. The many, many maintenance people who endlessly shovelled snow from roofs and grounds and blocked the pavement where icicles might fall, then broke up the remaining ice and swept away flooded drains and gutters, are now in gangs painting fences and kerb-stones around the local estates, picking up litter and blocking the path again, where it is now bits of (dampish) buildings that threaten to drop off.

The earth is still mainly blank, but grass is just beginning to show through and some neighbours are planting flowers. And the ubiquitous paint - which I remember from being here in 1970s - is still that really unpleasant green.

doing up the public!

On the estate where I live in North London we have a gardening club where, on occasions, small groups of people come together to do their public duty and plant bulbs, do weeding, and clear various piles of rubbish. Its great, but of course the same old faces turn up each time. So I am pretty impressed with the assumption here as expressed by Mayor Luzhkov that, come April, massive numbers of the local populace (93,000 expected) will do a city-wide spring clean.

He says there are to be two subbotniki, or working Saturdays - what used to be called public labour days in the Soviet period - clearing debris, cleaning monuments and planting flower beds. April 17 and 24.

Mind you, as Moscow alternates between snow and thaw, with an increasing shift to the second, the sheer amount of water, filthy melting snow and accumulated dirt and detritus indicates that such a show of public commitment is not just nice but necessary.

city cross-section

Traveling back from Domodedovo airport on the aeroexpress train offers a good cross-sectional cut through Moscow (so good to do this journey in daylight if you can.) Coming towards Moscow, there is first a few small satellite towns and villages, each with their banal ring of Khrushchev era high-rise apartments; these are interspersed with pine plantations and scatterings of birch, together with older dachas, small traditional villas for people escaping the city at weekends and in the summer.

As you get nearer, more recent dachas pop up - many more of them, much more tightly packed and in wide variations from almost sheds to huge, overbuilt and over-styled mansions. Then, the next band of dull high-rises, this time on the outer ring of Moscow itself and now overlapping randomly with industrial buildings, miscellaneous yards and rows and rows of garages and 'car-cans'. Finally the city proper - still showing its comfortably worn out pre-revolutionary buildings knotted together with housing, offices and factories from every period.

And then into Paveletskaya, not a pretty station....