06
Feature
RUSSIA NOW
BOOKMARKS www.avvakumov.com Yuri Avvakumov’s Web site
SECTION SPONSORED BY ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA, RUSSIA
www.prlib.ru/en-us Boris N. Yeltsin Presidential Library
www.loc.gov United States Library of Congress
WWW.RBTH.RU
www.maps-moscow.com Moscow Architecture Preservation Society
History An expat revels in Moscow’s inner village; Will it survive?
Living in Moscow’s
Endangered Utopia
Like other cities, Moscow is home for now. It’s the first time The name Artists’ Village is cow’s towering Monument to style mansion. The Swiss-French
in love with the wrecking we’ve ever had a real garden, a misnomer. Scientists, politi- the Conquerors of Space. But architect Le Corbusier experi-
ball. Historic Moscow a miracle in congested, high- cians, geologists and actors it was probably the decision mented here with a pinkish
is more or less gone and the rise Moscow. We could hardly were all among the earliest in- to rename the roads after fa- stone house, to see how well it
administration has turned believe our luck as violets, daf- habitants of this cooperative mous 19th-century Russian would withstand the Russian cli-
to residential neighborhoods fodils and tulips started to ap- building venture. There were painters, like Vrubel and Pole- mate.
like Sokol. The Russian media pear. In summer, cascading or- at least two reasonably well- nov, that gave rise to the set- The house Le Corbusier built
has expressed outrage; our ange blossoms and carpets of known artistic households, tlement’s nickname. is one of many that have been
correspondent lives there. lilies of the valley bewitched our however Sergei Gerasimov, fa- There were several architects destroyed by developers in re-
city-hardened senses. mous for his colorful if syco- living in the original commu- cent years to make way for
PHOEBE TAPLIN
Sokol village is quite a mirac- phantic portraits of Soviet lead- nity, including Nikolai Mark- monstrously oversized neo-clas-
SPECIAL TO RUSSIA NOW ulous place. Built as a utopian ers, lived in a castle-like house ovnikov, who designed our sical palaces or bristling ultra-
experiment in the 1920s, its of his own design on Levitana house. The local museum has modern fortresses. Moscow ar-
It’s snowing again in Sokol, tree-lined streets still have a rural Street. The Faidish family still a photo of him sitting in the chitectural expert Maria Kiernan
our “Artists’ Village.” It was feel. In a triangle between the lives around the corner and pinewoods where the village regrets that wealthy Russians are
snowing when we moved in, thundering Leningrad and Vo- we can see numerous sculp- was taking shape. The project able to pay off planning regu-
nearly two years ago. This log lokolamsk highways and a sooty tures through their windows. became a showcase for differ- lators, she said, and build “fre-
cabin, near the heart of the me- cargo railway, this small collec- Andrei Faidish-Krandievsky cre- ent kinds of houses: wooden quently tasteless, pretentious VALERY MELNIKOV_KOMMERSANT
tropolis, with its view of birches tion of more than 100 cottages ated the figure of a pioneer izbas, cozy brick cottages, even structures” where “size and or- Sokol residents protest plans to develop the area.
and tower blocks, is definitely is unique. cosmonaut at the foot of Mos- a small, plastered Art Nouveau- nament” are the most impor-
tant features.
The rate of demolition and more challenging. Although we Moscow, living in the village
Visitors to Russia’s capital find it hard to imagine: new building is intensifying. The are within walking distance of represents “the country in the
Sokol remains a village locked inside a bustling noise of construction competes Sokol metro station, the school city. A dream come true.”
metropolis. with the birdsongs. Moscow run involves a bus and a tram There is something dream-
Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s brother- with a walk at each end. Our like about living here. A friend
in-law is among the new resi- dedicated family reliance on first spotted the tiny, handwrit-
dents who have bought up the public transport is severely test- ten advertisement for a house
plots where two smaller cottag- ed when the temperatures drop in Sokol, pinned to a corner of
es once stood. Disproportion- below minus twenty. The anti- the school notice, just at the
ate development both inside quated heating system also moment when we were being
and outside the village is in dan- struggles with the Moscow evicted from our previous apart-
ger of overshadowing the total weather. In summer, it’s hard ment. She insisted we have a
effect, which was carefully to keep cool, but when icy look, since “chances like this
planned as an early Soviet gar- winds blow through the cracks come only once a lifetime.”
den city. around the windows, watching Next day, we had a new
Even the trees lining the di- TV becomes a three-duvet af- home.
minutive streets were planted fair. The huge logs of the orig- It’s snowing harder now, tem-
with an eye toward color and inal house are as solid as ever; porarily obscuring the skyscrap-
harmony within the overall de- it’s the more recent extension er next door, which is so tall it
sign. Each lane, which narrows on the back that has the needs lights on top to warn air-
as it leaves the village center to gaps. craft. A fieldfare is hopping on
give an effect of rural distance, Our neighbors are a mixture the creeper-covered garden
is different: The central avenue of rich Russian and foreign fam- wall, trying to find winter ber-
has golden maples and small- ilies with a dwindling number ries. The contrast sums up what
leaved lindens. Shishkina Street of the original villagers, like the I have come to expect from
has ash, and our own little lane reclusive professor in the der- modern Moscow: chaotic urban
has red-leaved sugar maples. elict cabin next door. For the planning on an Ozymandian
Autumn is stunning. Genest-Quiniou family from scale with fragments of beauty
ALEXANDER PETROSYAN_KOMMERSANT
Winter has proved slightly Canada, long-term residents of in forgotten spaces.
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Ogonyok printing plant by
Interview Yuri Avvakumov explains how Paper
Lisitsky, the Central House of
Reset Russian, American national libraries
Artists by Sukoyan.
Architecture became a movement offer access to each other’s unique materials
Do you think Russians should
be concerned about the preser-
Paper Architects and
vation of Modernist buildings?
Why?
An Open Exchange of Books
I wouldn’t divide architecture
the Razing of Moscow
according to style into what
needs saving and what doesn’t.... A new exchange between the The Library of Congress is ea- Vershinin, General Director of the
Buildings should be preserved Library of Congress and the gerly anticipating access to Yeltsin Presidential Library.
as monuments of material cul- Boris N. Yeltsin Presidential American silent films owned by For half a century, Billington
The U.S.S.R. Paper Architects top party boss of Moscow and ture, also for the simple reason Library could result in some Russia, but not seen here since helped Americans understand
grabbed top international
RN Dossier
in charge of construction. I was that any construction...harms surprising access to the 1920s. Only a tiny fraction the U.S.S.R., and now Russia,
prizes with projects never immediately accepted into the our immediate environment. previously closed materials of the silent films ever made through his writings and his
built. Yuri Avvakumov, who Soviet Architects’ Union. Less be- The future in Ray Bradbury’s for both the United States during a 40-year heyday exist work at the Library of Congress,
was at the center of the cause of the project, I think, than Fahrenheit 451 is already here, and Russia. in the United States, according and his tireless efforts at cultur-
movement, spoke to RN about because of Yeltsin’s praise. only in Russia they’re not burn- to the Library of Congress. Most al exchange. In his 80th year,
preservation and the grim ing books but destroying archi-
NORA FITZGERALD
of these films were destroyed he is still at it.
future for Russian Do you see an increasing inter- tecture. RUSSIA NOW or cannibalized at the time to “There are two categories of
architecture. est in the avant-garde in Rus- make new movies. Even though people who will benefit, spe-
sia? How is their work relevant Can you briefly talk about the The meeting between Presi- silent films were not exported cialists from IT technologies and
ANNA KANTEMIROVA
NORA FITZGERALD
today? role utopia plays in Russian ar- dents Dmitry Medvedev and to Russia for long, the Russian specialists in law and the devel-
RUSSIA NOW In the 1980s I was the only ar- chitecture, in Soviet times and Barack Obama last summer has Film Archives owns well-main- opment of statehood,“ Vershi-
chitect who used Constructiv- today? led to a promising cooperation tained originals. nin said. “But there is also a
Can you describe Russia’s Paper ist and Suprematist styles de- You know, during my close stud- between the U.S. Library of On the American side, the broader approach. Thanks to
Architect movement, the social claratively in my work. Now, at ies of Paper Architecture, I in- Congress and Russia's new Boris project is led by Dr. James H. this cooperation, we are going
atmosphere at the time and what a competition of Russia’s best sisted that it was based more Yeltsin Presidential Library. Some Billington, the eminent Russian to be able to access more in-
these architects were react- FROM PERSONAL ARCHIVES_ buildings, the main prize went on fantasy than utopia. I want- previously closed archives should scholar and Librarian of Con- formation about America and
ing to? Yuri Avvakumov is an archi- to a Moscow school of general ed to distinguish our private ex- open to scholars in both coun- gress. In December, he met his Russia.”
Paper Architecture was a genre tect, artist and curator. Born education that looks entirely ercises from Sovietspeak, from tries. Russian counterpart Prof. A.P. Vershinin's staff is also devel-
of conceptual architecture in the in Tiraspol (now capital of the Constructivist. If not for Luzh- the state utopia. Now, 25 years oping a “Russians in America”
U.S.S.R. in the 1980s, designs breakaway Transdniestr re- kov [the longtime mayor], Mos- later, I realize that both our as- history project for their digital
that were never built, “projects gion of Moldova) in 1957, cow would now be a Construc- sociation and our naïve ideas library. “We hope to find out
of projects.” Historically, Paper he graduated from the Mos- tivist city. were a utopia, a colony and a more about how Russians came
Architecture was a pejorative cow Architectural Institute in brotherhood of dreamers. of age in America,“ he said.
term that appeared in the late 1981. He has participated and What is the state of Russian ar- On the American side, schol-
1920s and referred to hare- curated art and architectural chitecture today? Tell us about your current proj- ars will have more access to pre-
brained ideas far removed from exhibitions since 1982, start- Construction here, as every- ects. 1917 materials online. Mono-
the vital tasks of the national- ed AGITARCH studio in 1988 where, is in crisis, and that’s I would like to finally write a book graphs, newspapers and
economic complex. For us, it and established the Utopia good because the speed with about Paper Architecture. periodicals are being digitized
was the chance to send one’s Foundation. which historical Moscow was by the Presidential Library. There
projects abroad to internation- being razed and replaced with What do you hope for Moscow is no indication yet whether ac-
al competitions, bypassing the malls and office buildings dur- architecture/cityscapes in the cess to Soviet-era archives will
restrictions imposed by Soviet by contemporary artists continu- ing the fat developer years was next decade? be more accessible.
censors. It was also a utopian ing the tradition of modernism. off the charts. Architects, as the I know that there’s no hope for “We have a huge audience,”
group of young architects, grad- I decided to show my City-Club last Russian Festival of Architec- anything better, never was and said Billington. “We hope, in
uates of the Moscow Architec- project, which had won first prize ture showed, now work more never will be, but I can’t quite general, this collaboration will
ture Institute. in Japan. The project was placed on social projects. believe it. I think that I’ll wake
PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY PRESS SERVICE
continue to enrich our under-
in Nagornaya Street, where I was up tomorrow and the bank now standing of each other. We have
Do you have a favorite story living. Well, it was removed What is your favorite building blocking our view of the Krem- a common interest in new
about official reaction to one of from the exhibit on the third day in Moscow and why? Favorite lin won’t be there.
-
media, and we are mutually try-
your entries that won an interna- because it hadn’t passed military buildings in other cities? ing to open access to informa-
tional competition? censorship. A year later, at an My favorite buildings in Mos- For the full text and a slide- tion that was formerly closed.
In the Mayakovsky Museum in exhibition of young architects, cow are the ones now in dan- show, see Russia Now at The more information we have,
1984, there was an exhibi- that same project was praised ger of being pulled down: Chil- washingtonpost.com/russianow PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE YELTSIN the broader the basis of our co-
tion with a small section of works by Boris Yeltsin. He was then the drens’ World by Dushkin, the or www.rbth.ru Alexander Vershinin and James Billington in Washington, D.C. operation will be.”
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