In Russia where 14 million Muslims reside as of 2017, Eid al-Fitr is often known as Uraza Bayram (Russian: Ураза-байрам) and is a public holiday in the republics of Adygea, Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Tatarstan and Chechnya. Most festive dishes consist of mutton, but salads and various soups are also popular. As the Muslim population is diverse, traditional festive dishes differ between regions – for example in Tatarstan pancakes are popularly baked.
Russian Muslims go to festive worships at mosques in the morning of Eid al-Fitr, after which they often visit older relatives as a sign of respect. In the North Caucasian republics, children popularly go past various houses with a bag to get it filled with candy, specially stored by locals for the celebration. In Dagestan, eggs with bright stickers is a popular traditional dish served there during Eid al-Fitr. People generally dress more during this day – women choose bright dresses with beads while older people would wear papakhas. In many places in the country master classes are also hosted where families take part in activities such as embroidery and clay making.
The festival of Eid Al-Fitr, or “Uraza Bayram,” marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan in Islam. This year 180,000 worshippers marked the event in Moscow, a figure below half of last year’s number.
Photographer Dmitry Markov’s final post on Instagram, filed from the town of Alexandrov in Russia’s Vladimir Region
We met Andrei when we were walking in Alexandrov’s bedroom district. He had gone out to get a bottle of vodka from a taxi driver and bumped into us on the narrow snow-covered path at the entrance to his two-storey apartment building.
“You should stop digging for drug stashes here, there’s nothing to find.”
We explained that we were tourists and asked whether we could visit his house. It transpired that Andrei had come home from the special military operation but was planning to go back. He was a drinker. He offered us buckwheat, sausages and tea and told us we couldn’t say no. First he took care of us. He heated the food, boiled water, and served us a simple lunch. Only then did he sit down, open the bottle, and pour himself some vodka.
“The Cop Party,” an early edition of The Russian Reader, which started life as a series of happenings. Pushkinskaya 10 artists’ squat, Petersburg, circa 1995
What’s the point of this flash mob? The nostalgia of aging people for their own youth? The illusion of normality in a situation of growing abnormality? The illusion of solidarity in a situation where all sociability is disintegrating?
Hundreds of thousands of Instagram users responded to a recent prompt asking them to post pictures of their younger selves. Photo quality varies.
Most of the photos are slightly faded. The hairlines fuller. Some feature braces. Old friends. Sorority squats and college sweethearts. Caps and gowns. Laments about skinny jeans and other long lost trends.
This week, Instagram stories the world over have been awash with nostalgic snapshots of youthful idealism — there have been at least 3.6 million shares, according a representative for Meta — as people post photos of themselves based on the prompt: “Everyone tap in. Let’s see you at 21.”
The first post came from Damian Ruff, a 43-year-old Whole Foods employee in Mesa, Ariz. On Jan. 23, Mr. Ruff shared an image from a family trip to Mexico, wearing a tiny sombrero and drinking a Dos Equis. His mother sent him the photo, Mr. Ruff said in an interview. It was the first time they shared a beer together after he turned 21.
“Not much has changed other than my gray hair,” he said. “I see that person and go, ‘Ugh, you are such a child and have no idea.’”
Mr. Ruff created the shareable story template with the picture — a feature that Instagram introduced in 2021 but expanded in December — and watched it take off.
“The amount of people that have been messaging me and adding me on Instagram out of nowhere, like people from around the world, has been crazy,” Mr. Ruff said.
[…]
Source: Sopan Deb, “‘Let’s See You at 21’ Puts Fun Spin on the Unrelenting March of Time,” New York Times, 1 February 2024
Maybe it’s not all so bad, and millions of people just wanted someone to see them as young and hot 21-year-old guys and girls who had everything ahead of them, all doors were open, and there were no obstacles to achievement. It’s good if these photos amuse them, rather than drive them to despair, if the person in the photo hasn’t achieved what he or she dreamed of at 21.
On the other hand, by scrolling through their Facebook feed with the “I am 21” flash mob, users see hundreds and thousands of photos of unknown people in foreign cities that mean nothing to them. What is the practiccal point of this flash mob? For users of Facebook, who have been posting numerous photos for years, there is no point.
Psychologists have long ago explained why people dump so many photos, including selfies, onto social networks: they have a need for constant approval and a desire to escape from unpleasant reality into a beautiful and easy virtual world where everything is fine. They’re also a means of communicating, showing off, and flirting. And if the “retro,” “things used to be better,” or “how young we were” option is enabled, nostalgic group sobs, likes, and reposts are guaranteed.
“We don’t think about artificial intelligence when we post our photos on social media, simply because the vast majority of us have no idea how neural networks are trained, or how algorithms work. We just wonder why topical ads jump out at us immediately when we think of something, but then we forget about it. Artificial intelligence isn’t Skynet from the Terminator movies at this point, but it’s something we’re going to be dealing with more and more. And protecting our personal information should worry us more than before,” says data science expert Yevgeny Galin. “Putting personal photos in the public domain is no toy or form of entertainment. We don’t know who could use them and for what purposes. I have no doubt that those purposes are illegal. And I wouldn’t count on social networks being conscientious about privacy policies. There’s nothing private on the internet. Facebook is already pretty good at recognizing faces and tagging people in photos.”
Training AI to recognize faces even in poor-quality black-and-white photos from the last century is proceeding by leaps and bounds. In many countries, identifying individuals with street surveillance cameras is already almost permitted by the constitution. And artificial intelligence is dependably replenishing the database of inhabitants of cities, countries, and continents. After all, it is so easy, especially if people post info about themselves on the World Wide Web.
Public figures who post their photos may well be involved in some kind of scam using deepfake technology.
Yes, we may be once bitten, twice shy, but caution in this case can’t hurt.
Igor Stomakhin, “Episodes of Swedish Russophobia.” It is part of the informal series Moscow, 2023, posted on the extraordinary photographer’s essential Facebook page periodically throughout the past year
Russia’s Interior Ministry has proposed requiring foreigners who visit Russia to adhere to an “agreement of loyalty,” the state-run TASS news agency reported Wednesday, citing a draft law prepared by the ministry.
According to the draft law, foreigners staying in Russia would be prohibited from “hindering the activities of public authorities of the Russian Federation [or] discrediting in any form the foreign and domestic state policy of the Russian Federation, public authorities and their officials.”
They would also be prohibited from “denying traditional family values and distorting the contribution of the Soviet people to the victory over fascism,” according to TASS.
In addition, foreigners would need to agree that they will not “show disrespect for the diversity of regional and ethnocultural ways of life of the Russian population, traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.”
Valentina Kazakova, who heads the Interior Ministry’s migration department, said the draft proposal for an “[agreement of loyalty] was being discussed” and would “soon be sent to the [lower house] State Duma” for consideration, according to TASS.
She did not provide a more specific timeline.
At the same time, it was not clear from TASS’s report whether the Interior Ministry’s proposal would require foreigners to sign a physical agreement form upon entering Russia.
In 2021, the Interior Ministry suggested introducing a similar loyalty document for visiting foreigners, but the proposal never reached the State Duma, according to the Kommersant business daily.
“‘The Arab world is not just beautiful ethnic costumes, exquisite dishes, and other One Thousand and One Nights-type stuff, but also brutal dictatorships, poverty, a high tolerance of violence, and sometimes outright racism and religious fanaticism. According to my observations, however, this second facet is almost always bracketed off by Europeans when describing the countries of the “global South” or is guiltily dished up as a consequence of the traumatic colonial past.’ Essayist Andrei Sapozhnikov (“Department of Culture”) connects the abnormally high support for Hamas’s invasion of Israel in the Western world with this peculiarity.”
Source: Email newsletter from the online Russian magazine Republic, 8 November 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “Middle of the Morning” (2023)
Well, I’ve tried To open up my window and let the light come in I step outside In the middle of the morning and in the evening again
Yes, I’ve tried To be grateful for my devils and call them by their names But I’m tired And by the middle of the morning I need someone to blame
I know you’re scared of me, I can see it in your face I can feel it in the way you move around this place I know you’re scared of me, I can see it in your smile Like an unattended child you can’t quite trust
But I’m tired Of stepping on your shadow and feeling in the way Yes, I’m tired And by the middle of the morning I’m out of shit to say
I ain’t used to this, seeing everybody’s hand I was raised to be a strong and silent southern man I ain’t used to this, a thousand days alone In my bed or in my head or in my phone
Yes, I’m tired Of living in the moment and sleeping through the dream I step outside In the middle of the morning and the roses hear the scream
I know you’re scared of me, so I never get too close I just sit here on the tailgate like a farm hand’s ghost Watch the roses bloom, watch them wilt away and die ‘Til I notice I’ve been crying this whole time
Well, I’ve tried To open up my window and let the light come in I step outside In the middle of the morning and in the evening again
Source: Musixmatch. Thanks to Mark Rogers (Nashville Babylon) for the heads-up.
Russia continues to reap the consequences of its reckless campaign to release dangerous criminals from prisons to dispatch in their illegal war against Ukraine, RFE/RL’s Sever.Realii reported on Aug. 3.
The latest case involves 37-year-old Igor Sofronov, who had previously served a sentence for robbery, attempted murder, and other crimes. Upon returning to his hometown of Dereviannoye in the Republic of Karelia after his involvement in the war, Sofronov spiraled into a series of alcohol-fueled binges.
During one of these drunken episodes, Sofronov, along with his drinking buddy, 38-year-old Maxim Bochkarev, who had also been imprisoned for theft, abduction, robbery, and rape, unleashed a brutal massacre, claiming the lives of six individuals.
“The murders were committed in two houses within 200 meters of each other. In the first house, two men (father and son) were killed, and in the second one, three men and a woman were brutally murdered. Both houses were set on fire after the killings. The suspects were apprehended six hours later,” the report said.
Local residents revealed that Sofronov had served as a mercenary for the Wagner private military company. There is also information suggesting that he fought as part of the “Storm Z” unit, which operates under the Russian Ministry of Defense and recruits prisoners for participation in so-called “meat grinder assaults.”
This tragic incident serves as yet another example of returning Russian aggressors turning their violence on their fellow citizens.
There was a time I thought I knew About life and what to do And now it’s plain I know nothing at all I should have known better
But I took it all on blind faith And now the bad guys have all run away
Lonely won’t leave me alone Tried I tried but you won’t let go It’s a pain that won’t go away Lonely won’t leave me alone
There was a time I had pride I had friends stood by my side And a smile was all I had to give Under a spell under a cloud I fell in with the wrong crowd And so I guess I learned my lesson well
Lonely won’t leave me alone Tried I tried but you won’t let go It’s a pain that won’t go away Lonely won’t leave me alone
Chalkin’ days on the wall Seems this night won’t end at all For me patience leaves Trace your smile on the glass Try to make it all last Till I come home again
Lonely won’t leave me alone Tried I tried but you won’t let go It’s a pain that won’t go away Lonely won’t leave me alone
There was a time I thought I knew About life and what to do
“July 15, 7 p.m. Mental Cafe: conversations about mental health. Open Space”
Mental Cafe is a cafe without food service and a permanent address where people come together to discuss topics related to mental health.
It is not a support group or a grief group. It does not provide psychological assistance. It is just a conversation club where you can share your experiences and ask any questions about mental disorders.
You can even choose not to participate in the conversation, but just listen. Anyone—not just people with mental disorders—can attend.
7 p.m., Saturday, July 15
Open Space in St. Petersburg, 25 Rubinstein Street
The war with Ukraine, which has been going on for more than a year, continues to intensify the psychoticization of Russian society. Russians spent 4.32 billion rubles on antidepressants in the period from January to May 2023, Vedomostireports, citing statistics compiled by the DSM Group.
Sales increased by 2% compared to the same period last year. And yet the early months of the invasion of Ukraine were accompanied by a surge in demand for antidepressants, which increased by 87% year on year. Thus, in 2023, Russians set a new record for purchases of antidepressants, whose volumes nearly doubled compared to pre-war levels.
Players in the psychotropic drugs market confirmed to Vedomosti the further increase in demand for antidepressants, despite the high benchmark set last year. According to Eapteca, the demand for this category of medicines increased by 30% in the period from January to May 2023. According to Kirill Yakobenko, general director of Uteca, sales of such products “have grown in terms of both sheer numbers and turnover.”
The increase in demand for antidepressants may indicate that people have become more prone to mental disorders treated with antidepressants. These include not only depression but also adjustment and anxiety disorders, psychiatrist Viktor Lebedev told The Moscow Times.
He notes that his colleagues in Russia speak of their increased workload. “People come to see them more often and talk during their sessions about the special military operation and how it has affected their lives,” he says, adding that large-scaled emigration has also led to an increase in depression and other mental problems among Russians.
It will be possible to make a genuine assessment of the war’s impact on overall mental health only a few years from now, but we should not expect positive forecasts, psychiatrist Dmitry Kutovoy said pessimistically.
“After Putin, the new regime will face the daunting task of normalizing society’s mental state and we, as professionals, must be ready for this,” he adds.
In 2022, alcohol sales in Petersburg increased by 4.8%, although prior to this they had been declining. The demand was powered by cheap and strong Russian drinks, which have replaced the beverages produced by departed foreign producers. At the same time, the reported incidence of alcohol dependence has been growing in Petersburg.
Bumaga requested data from official departments and analysts. We show how much alcohol is consumed both nationwide and in Petersburg, how many people have been diagnosed with alcoholism, and how alcohol consumption is associated with an increase in homicides.
Russians drinking more, alcohol consumption in Petersburg four times greater than in 2021
According to Rosalkogolregulirovanie (Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation), Russians are buying more and more alcohol every year. In 2022, this volume reached its peak: 2.2 billion liters of strong alcohol and beer were purchased. Rosalkogolregulirovanie told Bumaga that this was mainly due to an increase in sales of spirits and wine, while beer was bought in roughly the same quantities as a year earlier.
Alcohol consumption decreased in Petersburg from 2018 to 2020, but the trend was reversed in 2021, while growth in 2022 was four times higher than a year earlier.
Purchases of alcoholic beverages (in millions of liters) in Petersburg, 2017–2022
Strong and cheap alcohol more popular
In 2022, foreign alcohol producers such as Brown-Forman and William Grant & Sons left the Russian market. Because of this, the prices of imported alcohol increased by 10–20% from the beginning of the year, restaurateurs noted. Prices for foreign-made beer increased even more, by an average of 30–50%, Alexander Romanenko, the founder of Bakunin Brewery and several other Petersburg establishments, told Bumaga.
“If we take into account premium brands, then the price increase most likely did not affect their consumption in any way, since elite alcohol is drunk by wealthy people. The consumption of alcohol in the mid-price range has been changing the most. With the price rises of these products, consumers have been looking for cheaper substitutes or switching to other categories of drinks,” said Agvan Mikaelyan, who sits on the board of directors of the audit and consulting network FinExpertiza.
Rosalkogolregulirovanie notes that domestic producers have already more than doubled the volume of alcoholic beverages that were once imported to Russia.
However, new products often prover to be of poorer quality, Mikaelyan told Bumaga. According to him, Russian-made gin, rum, and whiskey are “imitations,” since they have not yet gone through a full production cycle.
Purchases of alcoholic beverages stronger than 9% ABV (in millions of liters) in Petersburg, 2017–2022
In 2022, the level of consumption of beverages with a strength greater than 9% ABV increased by 6% in Petersburg. In the first four months of 2023, Petersburg residents purchased a third of what they had bought during the whole of last year—that is, there has been no slowdown in sales.
According to FinExpertiza, Petersburgers bought 3.2% more strong alcohol (i.e., vodka, cognac, and other distilled beverages), raising their consumption to 6.9 liters per capita. At the same time, in Russia as a whole, purchases of these beverages rose by 7.5%, thus increasing per capita consumptions to 6.8 liters. In 2021, this figure had increased by only 1.2%, while it went up by 3.3% in the pandemic year of 2020.
Purchases of vodka (in millions of liters) in Petersburg, 2017–2022
Mikaelyan added that vodka consumption has been growing, as it remains the cheapest strong drink. In Petersburg, as in all of Russia, 2022 saw a 6% increase in purchases of vodka. Vodka consumption had decreased by about the same percentage in 2021.
Level of alcoholism falling, but more new cases reported in Petersburg every year
Despite the recent rise in alcohol consumption (especially of strong beverages), the number of residents with diagnosed alcohol addiction has been decreasing in Petersburg for the past five years. In 2022, there were a little more than 18,000 people official diagnosed with alcoholism in the city, according to data provided to Bumaga by Petrostat.
Diagnoses of alcoholism in Petersburg, 2018–2022. Total diagnoses are indicated by the figures inside the dark green bars, while first-time diagnoses are indicated by the figures next to the light-green bars.
However, the number of Petersburgers who were diagnosed with alcoholism for the first time increased last year. It exceeded one thousand people for the first time in five years.
The latest data we have on deaths due to alcohol poisoning is for 2021. In that year, according to Rosstat, 9,274 Russians died of alcohol poisoning, 199 of them from Petersburg.
Only incidents of “accidental alcohol poisoning,” which is classified as an external cause of death, are counted in the official statistics, and so these figures do not show how many people died from diseases caused by alcohol consumption. At the same time, Rosstat points out that among those who died from diseases of the circulatory, nervous or digestive systems, as well as from neoplasms, there are also those who suffered from alcoholism.
The more Russians drink, the more murders occur
Every year, between a quarter and a third of the crimes in Russia are committed under the influence of alcohol, according to data from the Judicial Department. In 2022, however, this figure fell by 2.7% compared to the previous year.
The states in which crimes for which people were convicted in 2022 were committed: sober – 74%, alcohol inebriation – 25%, narcotic intoxication – 0.5%, other – 0.2%
The Trauma Center Lawyers Association claim that up to 80% of murders in Russia occur after alcohol is consumed. The lawyers point out that in 2022, for the first time in twenty years, the number of murders and attempted murders increased by 4% in Russia. The lawyers attribute this increase to the growth in sales of alcoholic beverages.
Due to alcohol consumption, there are more murders on holidays than on other days. On New Year’s Eve, for example, the murder rate increases as much as fivefold, criminologist Vladimir Kudryavtsev, an associate researcher at the Institute for the Rule of Law, explained to Bumaga.
“During the holidays, a certain standard scenario is replayed that leads to lethal violence: people sit together in a closed room, consuming alcohol. And most often people kill people they know, people with whom they must share things. The holidays are a ‘petri dish’ that reproduces the environment for conflicts,” he said.
The war in Ukraine, which began on 24 February 2022 at the whim of the President of Russia, destroyed the lives of thousands of people overnight. Almost immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, the government of my country issued decrees that cut off the oxygen to independent journalists, forbidding them to cover events truthfully and without partiality toward Russian politicians. News websites were blocked, freedom of speech ceased to exist. As a freelance photographer, I was forced to leave Russia on 4 March 2022 to avoid the risks associated with my work.
Like other Russians who do not support the war, I departed for points unknown, taking with me only a backpack and hope for change. I left tormented by feelings of guilt and shame, which still haunt me at every step. I have been having nightmares the entire time since I left. The news from the frontline and Ukrainian cities has been even more unbearable, however. I still can’t believe that all these events are real. My current project, based on self-portraits, visualizes my nightmares and explores feelings of shame and guilt. The visual sequence also incorporates drawings from the diary I have kept since my departure from Russia and screenshots of the news from Ukraine. All these layers recreate my personal space, thus enabling the viewer to dive deeply into my state of mind. I hope that this work will show that not all Russians support this terrible war or have been brainwashed by propaganda.
Petersburg anti-war activist and political prisoner Sasha Skochilenko at her trial, 7 July 2023. Photo: Alexandra Astakhova
At today’s hearing, the issue of remand was considered. The court could have released Sasha [Skochilenko] to house arrest or restricted her from doing certain things, or left her in pretrial detention for another three months.
This hearing might not have happened if the court had agreed to consider the issue during the remaining time at the previous hearing. But that did not happen, and today Sasha was once again transported from the pretrial detention center, and had to spend another day without food in poorly ventilated rooms. In an effort to ease Sasha’s suffering, the defense petitioned to move the hearings to an air-conditioned courtroom, to permit Sasha to drink water during the hearings, and to turn on the microphones and speakers in the courtroom so that the windows and doors could be opened. Judge Demyasheva ruled all these petitions “extra-procedural” and ignored them.
Prosecutor Gladyshev could not produce a single argument in favor of leaving Sasha in pretrial detention. He only repeated the vague arguments, made earlier by police investigators, that Sasha would resume her “criminal behavior” and could leave the country, possibilities which had already been ruled out by the court at previous hearings. Most memorably, the prosecutor declared, bombastically, “Skochilenko committed a grave crime against public safety, undermining the foundations of the Russian state.” (After he said this, the bailiffs had to remove a member of the public who had burst out laughing from the courtroom, and the judge declared a recess.) When Sasha’s lawyer Yana Nevodinnova pointed out to the prosecutor that his arguments were unfounded, Gladyshev was cut to the quick. “Reprimand the lawyer,” he asked the judge, “She insults Russia’s judicial system!”
Despite the numerous arguments about the critical state of Sasha’s health, which the defense had made at the previous hearing, the judge ordered that Sasha remain in pretrial detention until October 10.
Many thanks to everyone who keeps coming to court! The next hearing—this time on the merits of the case—will take place very soon, on July 18 at the Vasileostrovsky District Court. Please come out and support Sasha!
People ask how things are going for me on the professional/international front. My answer: nowhere fast. For two reasons.
Firstly, the clusterfuck in which “our village” (c) has become entangled, imposes certain restrictions. By working with foreign galleries and submitting works for international awards, I risk getting branded a “foreign agent.” You can’t explain to the comrade major from the secret services that France is the birthplace of photography, and that the photo fair at the Grand Palais in Paris is the most important event in the world. It’s not even the status of “foreign agent” as such that scares me, but the possible consequences for the people and organizations with whom I work.
Let’s be realistic, though: if they want to brand me a “foreign agent,” they’ll do it all the fucking same, so let’s move on to the second, more important reason.
Publications, exhibitions, and awards abroad put plenty of wind in your sails and boost your self-esteem. I am grateful to destiny for every such encounter on my professional journey. It was an important stage in my work, but I think I’m past it. International recognition is cool, but it still doesn’t compare to being liked and understood at home. Seriously: when people come up to you on the street to shake your hand, it’s worth a lot.
A connoisseur can correctly break down a creator and their work, but in order to fully experience what was happening at the time a photo was shot, you need a personal context. Roughly speaking, to appreciate the beauty of a picture taken in a bedroom district, I would argue that you have to live in a bedroom district. My social media stats show that the majority of my subscribers are Russian nationals in their thirties and forties, that is, people with the same background and cultural code as me. Eight out of ten of these people have nothing to do with photography, and these are probably the most valuable viewers, since I had the honor to introduce them to documentary photography.
When a stranger says that my photos rhyme with their feelings and memories, I experience (how should I put it?) a connection with something greater. This is probably the miracle of art: a moment in life that lasts one thirtieth of a second enables strangers to understand something fundamentally vital about each other. Ultimately, these pictures are mine as much as they also belong to each of the people who caught sight of something personal in them. Maybe not everyone will be able to appreciate my compositional techniques and artistic devices, but fuck them. They are just tools for conveying a message, and the message is the only thing that matters.
The simplest and, simultaneously, the most difficult thing is to understand your time, your place, and your metier. It seems I have succeeded in doing this: my photos get attention, and my books sell so well that every year I have to reprint them. So I just want to keep doing what I’m doing for as long as I can—here.
P.S. By the way, whereas earlier, according to my stats on (extremist) Instagram, Paris was in third place, after Moscow and Petersburg, in terms of numbers of followers, nowadays Chelyabinsk is in third place! This is definitely a sign of success.
Source: Marina Varchenko (Facebook), 3 July 2023: “A downpour on Ligovka.” Ihave spent so much time on “Ligovka,” i.e., Ligovsky Prospekt, and on the corner pictured here in particular, that I’m nearly sure it’s permanently imprinted on my brain. I’ve probably been in more than one summertime evening downpour on that very same corner. ||| TRR
Riders!
The cavalry charges on knotted legs, bucking their backs!
Confucius-handed and Buddha-headed
People with arms and torso
Move across the tundra
Other same-sex creatures walk around and whistle…
A light downpour pours and pours
Pitter-patter
And
Pitter-patter
And
Pitter-patter
And
Pitter-patter
And
Pitter-patter
Softly, softly, as if it isn’t water, but happiness
Under the bright sun
Of historical materialism…
Everyone is free to go.
* * *
Riders Horsemen Scouts!
The delegation from the nearby islands,
So near so near, by the edge of the red peacock,
Oohed and aahed nearby and then fell silent… Basically, we're doing great!
Buzz off, I’m a married woman, as they say.
The delegation from the islands considered the problem of
“The oppression of ethnic minorities.” It was a fruitful meeting.
Henceforth many streets will be called “avenues,”
But “rain” and “cream-colored” will remain.
It will seem odd to you, but songs shall also be sung,
And internal resources employed…
The delegation did not approve what is called “freedom.”
They started saying it was “anarchy.”
Well, of course we went for our knives… the carnage lasted for a long while!
It’s inhumane to finish off the wounded, they…
All belong to the people.
Vadim Ovchinnikov in his studio at Pushkinskaya 10 in Petersburg, early 1990s Photo by Boris Smelov. Courtesy of ov-ov.com
Born in Pavlodar (Kazakh SSR), Vadim Ovchinnikov (1951–1996) was a Leningrad/Petersburg-based artist who worked in a number of media, including painting, watercolor, collage, animation, mail art, conceptual literature, and music. His works can be found in the collections of the Russian Museum (Petersburg), the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Art Museum of Pavlodar, and Kai Forsblom Gallery (Helsinki). For more information on Ovchinnikov’s art and life, see the website ov-ov.com. The two poems by Mr. Ovchinnikov, above, were originally translated by Thomas Campbell for the exhibition catalogue The New Artists (Yekaterina Andreyeva and Nelly Podgorskaya, editors; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2012). These translations have been revised for publication here.
7 p.m., Saturday, July 15
Open Space in St. Petersburg, 25 Rubinstein Street
Mounted police have returned to the streets of St. Petersburg.
The Russian Reader 