BEYT - NAIMA - ART

FAREWELL TO ST. PETERSBURG

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First of all, it is worth saying that the very title of the exhibition somehow misleads the viewer. In one century, the city on the banks of the Neva changed its name three times. In this regard, let us define that Petrograd is by no means St. Petersburg, and both of them have nothing much in common with Leningrad. If the city had changed names by his own wish, then we could have accused it, with an amount of good reason, of some frivolity: however, such an accusation is more suitable for its protagonist, Moscow. The city on the Neva is serious: a sense of humor, lightness have been unknown to him ever. And even if the renaming did not happen by his will, the very fact of existence of different names is too significant to be neglected.
So, if it is not yet entirely clear to whom exactly one is saying goodbye, then this can probably be clarified by turning to the one who is saying goodbye. And here I allow myself to suspect that, due to the age characteristics of both viewers and artists, it’s a farewell not to St. Petersburg, but to Leningrad. Obviously, Leningrad inherited something from his predecessors, and if so, then it’s worth starting by mentioning what is common to all the three images, which is the fact that particularly this city creates a space of myth, and there are not so many cities of that kind in the world: Rome, Paris, Jerusalem, Venice, Prague... These cities are ruled by the dead and the literary heroes, who came from the pages of books to their native city and took him into their hands so that they never give him up to anyone. However, the Neva remains as it has always been, and the Fontanka, and the Moika, and the Kryukov Canal... To cut the long story short, the water remains (although it is known that one cannot find a more changeable element). There are palaces left, although we admit that the Anichkov Palace and the Palace of Pioneers are not the same thing, just as the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace is not equal to the related committee of the CPSU of the Kuibyshev district. The courtyards, the fireproof walls, commercial apartment buildings have changed little, except that the latter have become even more profitable... And of course, it is worth mentioning that the population of Leningrad, due to the purges of 1918 and 1934 and Blockade of Leningrad, was in many ways different from the population of St. Petersburg. And it is also definitely worth saying that, as a rule, one parts with what one loves or (in this case it is even more suitable) with the one who is loved. Let’s compare two phrases – to separate from a woman and to leave a woman. So, who in this case has exactly been separated? Who is he, a Leningrader who today calls himself a St. Petersburger? If you want to get the most appropriate information about him, as well as about his city, it would be the best to contact a Muscovite who is always puzzled by this ridiculous experiment that grew up in the Finnish swamps. To begin with, he will tell you, any inhabitant of this city is not mentally a completely healthy one. This, perhaps, proves to be true, but be merciful, how can it be any different, if for one third of the year the light starts to dawn only at ten in the morning, and by four in the afternoon the city is plunged back into darkness. At the same time, in the other third of the year it gets dark around eleven in the evening, and at two in the morning it is already light as in daytime. Only a third of the year a person here lives in accordance with the normal biological rhythms. A native of this city, as a rule, is a closed person, not tolerant to any sort of familiarity, but most importantly he is a lonely one. The city shapes a person's character. Crossing Palace Square is not the same as crossing, let us say, Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, since if the space of the latter is limited by houses, the space of Palace Square is not limited by anything. This city dweller is addicted to his lonely walks, whether in the ghostly light of white nights, or in the darkness of a night snowstorm. And there is one more specific feature: he almost never calls his city by name. - When are you returning to the City? - And everyone understands that there is only one city in the world, which is called the City with a capital C.
What then a farewell means for the person who becomes finally separated from the City? Let us leave aside the splendor of the city sites, treasures of the Hermitage and the Russian Museum. Let’s not remind one of the Mariinsky Theatre, whose hall enchants one by the sight of its curtain going up, of the charming Mikhailovsky Theatre, the solemnly white-columned Philharmonic Hall… There, in some far away past the evening April sky remained deep blue. There, the anemic bunches of lilacs stretched towards the morning light in the courtyard on Goloday. There remained still granite steps leading into the dark water. There also remained bakeries with French, and then (after even this was renamed!) City bun. A table in an ice cream place, under which it was so convenient for three humans to have a drink. And yes, of course, there remained those drink-and-snack and cutlet bars of the past. There remained pies with pearl sago, green onions and boiled eggs in front of the Barrikada cinema hall, and those steamy ring dougnuts in the icy Central Park of Culture and Leisure. There remained the aroma of tangerine peel in a December train and the smell of rotten potatoes that spilled into your string-bag, there are spongy pickled cucumbers from a wooden barrel, and pelmeni with butter and vinegar on Bolshaya Pushkarskaya street, and those hyacinths and small mimosa near the Kupchino metro station before the 8th of March.
There remained, also, the green velour of the Frog’s Pool ice-cream bar and those well-trained waiters of the Metropol and Astoria hotels. And of course, poplar fluff in June and the first kisses in the last row of the morning show at the Chronicle cinema hall. There remained, also, those pissed over and filthy front doors, and the smell of cabbage on the staircase, queues for the toilet in a communal flat, scandals and fights, and thugs in the gateway, thugs who have seized power in the country nowadays. Telefunkens captured as trophies and then thrown into the dust holes in courtyards. Snow, white and fluffy in January, red with black stains in the middle of April. And those small bouquets of snowdrops and lilies of the valley in the sinewy old hands of saleswomen at the Andreevsky and Maltsevsky markets. And autumn asters, golden balls and huge dahlias – red, purple! Warm beer from a kiosk in the gloomy icy morning. And then those attics and basements, lofts, a hot body on a squeezed sofa... All this…
One cannot separate space from time. There is no longer Leningrad, there is no Petrograd, there is no and will never be St. Petersburg. This exhibition should be called “Farewell to Youth”, for it is not space, but time turned into space that dominates us.

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                                                                                                    Translation: Andrey: MASHINYAN