Russia – the demolition project

Destroying monuments part two: smashing Lenins

There are more ways to reshape a city than demolishing, constructing and transforming buildings and infrastructure. Sometimes changes to smaller fragments of the city can have a powerful effect.

Recent events in Ukraine have highlighted monuments’ political potency, suggesting that they can be so deeply embedded in the identity of a place they become a natural focus and flashpoint when that identity is threatened with radical change. There has been coverage internationally of the destruction of statues of Lenin in Ukraine following the smashing of the monument in Independence Square in Kiev by pro-European and nationalist protesters. There are online maps showing the places where about 100 similar relics of the Soviet era have been attacked and pulled down.

Srecko Horvat, writing in the Guardian, points out that the destructions were foreshadowed by a virtual demolition in 2011, when a promotional video for Ukraine digitally erased the statue of Lenin in Liberty Square in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, leaving only an empty plinth.

Such erasures of history happen whenever there is far-reaching political change – and the collapse of communism in eastern Europe at the end of the 20^th century brought the smashing or removal of monuments on a large scale. Horvat remembers the widespread destruction of remnants of the Tito era as Yugoslavia disintegrated. “In the period from 1990 to 2000 at least 3,000 monuments were torn down in Croatia alone,” he says.

Elsewhere, Soviet-era monuments were displaced from their sites and corralled into holding pens or theme parks – which in turn have become tourist sites. Budapest has Memento Park, designed as an educational resource-cum-propaganda tool (as Hungary’s president said: “The Statue Park utilizes politically neutral means of art to emphasize the dignity of democracy and the responsibility of historical thinking.” Lithuania has Stalin’s World (officially called Grutas Park); Russia itself has Fallen Monument Park in Moscow.

In Ukraine, too, many statues from Soviet times were taken down after it became an independent state in 1991; others were replaced with ones of the country’s national hero, the poet Taras Shevchenko. But plenty remained until the latest round of regime change.

In fact Kiev’s Lenin had been a focus of conflict at least as far back as 2009, when the then president Viktor Yushchenko had called for the country to “cleanse itself” of Communist symbols. The statue was vandalised and mutilated, leading to street brawls that spotlighted the divisions in society. But it wasn’t just pro-Russian Ukrainians who rushed to its defence – Denis Vertov made an eloquent argument for preserving the monument for the sake of art history.

With the fall of Yanukovych, Lenins in Kiev and the west of the country fell like dominoes – at one point the Lenin in Kiev’s Independence Square was replaced by a golden toilet as a satirical comment, then by an artwork made up of golden mannequins. Meanwhile in the Russian-speaking part of Ukraine, they continued to preside – the old revolutionary now standing for the status quo, nostalgia, the past or the Russian motherland. In Kharkiv, for example – once the capital of Soviet Ukraine, where Russian speakers are in the majority – crowds defended the statue of Lenin against supporters of the new government who sprayed it with graffiti, in a standoff that lasted for more than a week.

But alongside the ideological reasons, perhaps there is also truth in the reason given by Andrei Borodavka, a Kharkiv journalist and anti-Euromaidan activist: “Lenin is the place where you meet girls for a date. Or where you go after your school graduation. Newly-weds visit Lenin too. He’s in our memories.”

Does a monument come into its own only when it is taken for granted, used as a landmark or meeting point and photographed by tourists as a picturesque historic sight? The suggestion is that Kharkiv’s Lenin (and others like it) is so much a part of Kharkiv that its removal would threaten the memories and identity of its residents – it has become detached from the story of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself as a historical figure and melded with the fabric of the city. It’s hard to take this at face value – the political aspects of the statue’s installation and preservation are surely embedded in its meaning just as firmly as those teenage dates and school graduation photos. But equally, the everyday functions of monuments should not be forgotten; when they are destroyed, part of a citizen’s personal past is ripped away alongside the reshaping of the city’s political and social history.

Part one of this piece looked at a monument recreated with its own destruction built into the design.

High Voltage Research Centre

In the middle of the woods by Istra, not that far from Moscow, you can find a strange structure.

In the middle of the woods by Istra, not that far from Moscow, you can find a strange structure. It is a test bench where scientists study the lightening. It is still working but you can organise an official visit to it and a very nice old gentlemen will talk for hours with you about the lightening. If you are lucky he will even show an artificial lightening to you.

More information here

Photos by Alisa Oleva

a return to Dzerzhinsk

Due to Russian climate you can see everything through two different filters: covered in white snow during winter and surrounded by green trees in summer. The abandoned buildings look especially different depending on the season. This is why we decided to re-visit the Zarya factory in Dzerzhinsk again in July. It was totally worth it. And, as usual with such huge abandoned sites, we discovered new buildings and rooms we did not get into during our first visit.

Photos: Alisa Oleva

reclaiming Nevsky Prospect for pedestrians

“There is nothing better than Nevsky Prospect, at least for Saint Petersburg; it simply constitutes everything for the city”, – this is how Nikolay Gogol described the main street of Saint Petersburg in his book.

In July 2013 Nevsky Prospect has undergone planned reconstruction which involved closing part of the street for cars during the weekend. This allowed to make it available for pedestrians’ use during that time. The citizens admired it entirely: hundreds of people were walking, drawings with chalk, playing instruments and making small performances. It even encouraged an initiative to try and convince the city administration to make the main street of the city available for pedestrians on every weekend in the future.

While it remains unlikely that this will ever happen, it is a curious example of how a moment of destruction during which the roads were ploughed up to put new asphalt, created an impulse and possibility for regaining part of one’s own city.

the second photo says: “Be a Pedestrian!” and the third: “Nevsky to the Pedestrians”

Photos: Alisa Oleva

roof-topping in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is famous for its rooftopping due to several characteristics of the urban structure of the city itself. Most of the rooftops are open and not CCTVed so it is much easier to access them unlike in Moscow. Also, the city is famous for its ‘system of roofs’: the houses stand in one line without a gap between them along the street so you can walk from one roof to another. Sometimes you can walk the whole street along the rooftops.

On every occasion when there are official fireworks in the city, we climb roofs which are close to the Neva river to have the best possible view.

ENCOUNTER

Approximately once a month you can potentially witness around 50-70 Russian-speaking people driving and running around London with torches in search for the codes. You might think they are just crazy (once, in the middle of the game when I was looking for a code, a policemen approached me asking calmly whether I was feeling ok) but in fact they are part of an exciting urban game called Encounter.

Approximately once a month you can potentially witness around 50-70 Russian-speaking people driving and running around London with torches in search for the codes written somewhere around the city. You might think they are just crazy (once, in the middle of the game when I was looking for a code, a policemen approached me asking calmly whether I was feeling ok) but in fact they are part of an exciting urban game called Encounter.

For some reason former Soviet Union countries have a rich tradition of urban games which involves solving tasks and riddles, often under time condition, around the city. From early teenage years we get used to playing various urban games and quests: Running City, Pathfinders, Night Watch and even a quest in the Moscow underground – Metrobooks. They have various formats but with the underlining idea of adrenaline, action, entertainment, fun, erudition and, most importantly, a chance to experience your usual urban environment in a totally different way; to view it through a different lens.

Why did it become so popular in the former Soviet territory? Of course Russians are famous for their extremity and adrenaline-seeking. But I would suggest another reason – there appeared a fruitful potential for playing with really extreme urban experiences after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A lot of original Encounter games would involve abandoned factories, underground tunnels, rooftops and high fences. One of the most well-known examples is when during one of the games the participants were actually caught by the police and, while they thought it was a complete game over for them, they found out that the code was actually written inside the cell they were put in on one of the bars so the policemen were part of the game! Of course such things could only be done in Russia.

Encounter, which was organised first in 2001 by a group of students in Minsk, Belarus, is played today by Russian communities in several European countries. The statistics says there are around 300 000 people playing Encounter in 11 countries. Of course it had to become a bit more mild as it had to adapt to the particular laws and context of each individual city. Only recently the London branch of Encounter (recently re-named into City Quest) has organised its first game for English-speakers, which went very successfully and inspired organisers to continue making games for Londoners. If you want to experience all I have been talking about above, I suggest you participate in one of the games. All information can be found here.

abandoned

an abandoned maritime school in Kronshtadt, near Saint Petersburg, with almost all classrooms preserved and even the names of the students still written with the chalk on the blackboards…

Photos by Alisa Oleva

life, death and reincarnation of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

Can you think of any buildings that were demolished to build something instead and then later were built anew? Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow is probably the brightest example.

Can you think of any buildings that were demolished in order to build something instead and then were built anew some time later? Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow is probably the brightest example.

The cathedral was commissioned to commemorate the victory of Russian nation over Napoleon in 1812. It took more than 40 years to be built and became the most important Orthodox church of the Russian State. During the Soviet era, when hundreds of churches were destroyed to proclaim a new, atheist communist state, the Cathedral became no exception. Moreover, not only was it doomed to be demolished, but it was also to be replaced by the grand Palace of the Soviets. An old ideological symbol was to be replaced by the another symbol of the new utopia.

On the 5^th of December 1931 two explosions destroyed the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. However, the beginning of the World War stopped the construction works and in 1956, when Stalin was already dead and the contextual frame totally changed, the idea of constructing the Palace of the Soviets was abolished. Instead, paradoxically, in 1960 a huge outdoors swimming pool ‘Moscow‘ was opened on the site of the cathedral. My grandmother told me they were going there every weekend. The view of it, all surrounded with the steam on a Sunday winter morning, must have been pretty surreal.

In 1991 the Soviet Union stopped to exist and, as a symbolic act of reincarnating Russia, the decision was made to restore the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Already in 1996 the first sermon was held in the cathedral and here it stood peacefully as a hundred years ago – as if nothing has happened.

It was, however, already charged with that energy of turmoil and ideological shifts. So probably it is no surprise that it was here that on the 21^st of February 2012 the Pussy Riot group made an action called ‘Punk Prayer’ which led to their imprisonment and provoked wide resonance in Russia and abroad. Thus, the Cathedral acquired its new layer of history as it often today referred to among locals as ‘Pussy Riot Cathedral’ or the main Moscow dancefloor.

It is impressive how buildings can be wiped off or reconstructed so easily when big ideologies are at work. Who knows what will be on site of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in a hundred years time?..

orthodox urbex

According to Lenin: ‘Religion is opium for the people’. Thus, religion was banned during Soviet era and most of the churches either destroyed or reused. Furthermore, some of them became home for museums of atheism.

According to Lenin: ‘Religion is opium for the people’. Thus, religion was banned during Soviet era and most of the churches were either destroyed or reused as factories, storages, schools or even prisons. Some of them even housed museums of atheism.

Despite recent aggressive revival of the church in Russia, there are still some abandoned ruined churches to be found all around Russia.

roofing

If you type ‘roofers’ or ‘roofing’ in google most of the searches will lead you to companies who fix roofs. Paradoxically, this term in Russian has been totally created from English language but does not really exist in English in the same sense.

If you type ‘roofers’ or ‘roofing’ in google most of the searches will lead you to companies who fix roofs. Paradoxically, the term in Russian [руферы, руфинг] has been totally created from English language but the word does not exist in English with that meaning – those urban explorers are rather called roof-toppers.

People have always climbed roofs to have a better of a city festival or to have a romantic date, but it was during 2000s (we also call them in Russia ‘zero years’ [нулевые] ) that roof-toppers formed a movement. It is based on a combination of romantic desire of young people to distance themselves from the ‘zero’ and meaningless life running down there while they are just wasting their time on the top of another roof, and of the interventionist desire to reclaim the territory of their own city (getting to a roof-top is always illegal in Russia although technically they are not anyone’s property). As roof-topers we know our city very well: all its tiny streets, all its codes and unlocked doors, all its angry inhabitants and dangerous dogs, all its back stairs and fire exists. Actually, this city belongs to us.

I have been practicing ‘roofing’ for more than three years now. Here I intend to share with you some of my thoughts about it as well as pictures.

Photos: Alisa Oleva