Leningrad 4

If you have been to Chronicles Bar [in downtown St. Petersburg], you have definitely seen the photos discussed in this film. In today’s session of “Screening the Real,” we are watching Leningrad 4, a documentary about Sergei Podgorkov and other champions of Leningrad’s unofficial photography scene during perestroika. Yuri Mikhailin spoke to the filmmaker, Dmitry Fetisov, about dramatic structure, time as a form and rhythm, and Soviet-era beer stalls.

“Leningrad 4,” Dmitry Fetisov, 2023 (in Russian with no subtitles)

My path to documentary filmmaking was a tortuous one. At school, I was interested in writing texts, and at the age of seventeen I decided to apply to the St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television (KiT) to study drama, but at the interview I was advised to go into documentary directing. At the time, Victor Kossakovsky was accepting students, but I didn’t go to study with him, I went to Tver (I’m from the Tver Region) and studied three years at the College of Culture, specializing in directing and theatrical acting. Then I went to study in Konstantin Lopushansky’s feature filmmaking program at KiT. I studied for a year, but them I decided to try my hand at documentary filmmaking again, although I didn’t really understand what it was.

I transferred to Vladislav Borisovich Vinogradov’s course, and I more or less made a go of it there. I guess I had found my master. It was the first time I saw examples of poetic documentary films with characters and dramatic structures that intrigued me. I also really liked Vladislav Borisovich’s work (I Return Your Portrait, A New Year at the End of the Century). I think that I have inherited to some extent his format, in which the films are based on interviews with the characters, and the themes have something to do with Leningrad culture.

Still from “Leningrad 4,” Dmitry Fetisov, 2023

My interest in photography stemmed from moving to St. Petersburg. I liked the texture of its central districts, the most banal things—palaces and , the difference between the Petrograd Side and Vasilievsky Island. And I was very interested in the movies made at Lenfilm Studios—Ilya Averbakh, the so-called Leningrad school, the perestroika-era pictures. This texture intrigued me. I came across the photographs of Boris Smelov, Leonid Bogdanov, and Boris Kudryakov. I became a big fan of theirs, and started looking for lesser-known photographers.

You could say that Leningrad 4 was born in 2011, when I went to a photo exhibition at the legendary Borey Gallery on Liteiny for the first time and saw Sergei Podgorkov’s work. I thought that I should make a movie about this man. I was very impressed by Ludmila Tabolina’s show at the Akhmatova Museum, as well as the exhibition on the Zerkalo photo club, from which many photographers had emerged.

In 2021, I decided to make a short film about Sergei Podgorkov. At the time, I had no idea that it would turn out to be a forty-minute movie. I wrote to Sergei on VKontakte, and he invited me to his place in Borovichi. If I were making the film now, I would probably add a video chronicle of the trip. Podgorkov showed us around the town, including the old railway station, and after filming we drank some good Novgorod moonshine with him to celebrate our acquaintance.

Many of the shots were made with Soviet gear—a Helios 40 telephoto lens. I bought it in a thrift store, and I successfully fitted this 1965-made lens to a Sony mirrorless camera. The Helios 40 handsomely blurs the edges and thus emphasizes the subject in the frame. It is my favorite lens.

After filming Podgorkov, I realized that the topic could be pursued further. I had always been interested in the Leningrad Rock Club, and so I decided to film Andrei “Willie” Usov, who was the staff photographer for the band Aquarium and did all the covers of their records, and was friends with Mike Naumenko.

Andrei “Willie” Usov, holding his iconic image
of Boris Grebenshchikov and Mike Naumenko. Still from “Leningrad 4,” Dmitry Fetisov, 2023

The third character was the pictorialist Ludmila Tabolina. I appreciate this movement in photography. The next character was Alexander Kitaev. I liked the Kitaev’s powerful countenance, that of a bohemian. Petersburg photographer, and I decided that I would film him even before I got acquainted with his images myself.

Another character is Valery Valran. He is not a photographer, but a well-known artist in Petersburg, a popularizer of photography, a curator of photo exhibitions, and the first to turn [photos by Leningrad’s underground photographers] into a photo album: the book Leningrad Photo Underground appears at the beginning of the film. I decided to include it in the film to tell about this photography movement a little from the outside.

And finally, there was Sergei Korolyov. I filmed him, but during editing I realized that, unfortunately, a short subject about him did not fit into the film. I edited it separately and posted it on my “Blog Stall” which I dreamed up when blogging was the cool thing and where I publish stories related to cinema. This episode is called “The Photographer Korolyov”.

“The Photographer Koroylov,” Blog Stall, episode 26

How did I realize that these characters were enough? When I filmed them, I had an idea for the next film I might make: about photographers who are no longer alive, like Bogdanov and Kudryakov. And I decided that the filming was over.

The film took a long time to edit, almost a year. I realized that each photographer has a certain leitmotif. Sergei Podgorkov has a story connected with beer stalls (although he does not emphasize it himself), Andrei Usov has rock, Ludmila Tabolina has the white nights, and Kitaev has [Petersburg’s] Kolomna neighborhood.

To separate the interviews and photos, I decided to use a film footage frame. Some of my colleagues think that this is visual bad form, but for me it seems logical: conversations with photographers are the present day, while their photos are the past, and the footage works as a transition between them.

Sometimes I wanted to connect the times. The chapter “Conversations at Beer Stalls” features music by contemporary jazz-noir artist Bebopovsky and the Orkestry Podyezdov. I had enjoyed him for a long time. I met the artist, and the opportunity to use his music in the film presented itself.

While I was editing, I did a photo shoot on black and white film for an acquaintance. I was supposed to make shots like in the scene in Godard’s movie Le petit soldat in which the main character takes a picture of a young woman. For this photo shoot, my friend bought a Leningrad 4 light meter on Avito. I realized that I would call the film that, because the main character is late Soviet Leningrad, and there are four photographers in it. Then I decided that I would divide the movie into four parts. Besides, perhaps these photographers possibly also used the Leningrad 4, as it was one of the most popular exposure meters of its time.

It was later that Sonia Minovskaya, my co-director and assistant on the movie, noticed that in some mythologies the nuumber four is the number of decay, death, and demised. And indeed, in each chapter something fades away or dies. In the first one, the Leningrad white nights are buried, while in the second, Mike Naumenko and a whole erа exits the stage. Then we see the end of the Summer Garden in its historical guise, and in the final chapter, where the rallies in the squares are shown, we see a country disintegrating. I didn’t think about this symbolism when I was making the film. I did it intuitively.

Photographer Alexander Kitaev. Still from “Leningrad 4,” Dmitry Fetisov, 2023

I understand that the editing is finished when a special, unique time emerges in a film. Time is a rhythmic form to me. A movie is ready to go when it suits me rhythmically. My films are calm, lyrical, and meditative. I probably like the documentaries of Wim Wenders for a reason.

Leningrad 4 was screened at the Arctic Open Festival in Arkhangelsk, where it got a super-warm reception; at the Salt of the Earth Festival in Samara; and in the online program at Artdocfest.

At one of the premiere screenings at the Rosphoto Museum, Sergei Podgorkov, with his usual irony, criticized the film for being too sentimental about an era that, in his opinion, is not worth the nostalgia. I did not put nostalgia in the movie, especially nostalgia for the Soviet Union, which I do not have. Andrei Usov noted that the films uses images from a time when the city was more interesting texturally for photographers. Nowadays, Petersburg is quite touristy, shiny and bright. He also admitted that the film left him with a heavy feeling. He and Naumenko had a great, strong friendship, and he still takes his departure quite personally.

Still from “Leningrad 4,” Dmitry Fetisov, 2023. Photo by Sergei Podgorkov

Another character in the movie, Svetlana, attended the screening at the bar WÖD. In the final scene, we see a photo of her standing on the roof of a building opposite the Mariinsky Palace during the attempted coup in August 1991 and looking into the lens—as if that era were upon us today. This is a famous photo by Sergei Podgorkov. Recently, Sergei found Svetlana through the internet and invited her to the screening. And now, thirty-three years later, she saw herself on the screen and recounted how the picture was taken. Podgorkov had run out of film, but Svetlana was also an amateur photographer, so she lent him her own camera, and he photographed her.

Recently, I went to Chronicles Bar on Nekrasov Street and saw Podgorkov’s photos there. It was amazing. It is a young people’s bar, and yet the walls are adorned with photos of Soviet-era beer stalls, so it is as if two eras were connected through Podgorkov’s photographs.

Source: Yuri Mikhailin, “Screening the Real: Dmitry Fetisov’s ‘Leningrad 4,'” Seans, 25 May 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader

Swine (Remembering Andrei Panov, the Soviet Union’s First Punk Rocker)

“I Don’t Think Punk Rock Is Very Viable”: Andrei “Swine” Panov’s Widow Talks to Us About Him and the Soviet Underground
Ona Razvalilas (It Fell Apart)
Sergei Vilkov
April 1, 2020

A week ago Andrei “Swine” Panov, the now deceased founder of the first Soviet punk rock group, Automatic Satisfiers (AS), would have celebrated his 60th birthday. In an interview, his widow, Olga Korol-Borodyuk, talked to our community page about how Soviet youth of the late 1970s managed to move in sync with the second wave of British punk; what ideology Swine and his crowd professed; what he thought of the political events of the Yeltsin era; Panov’s image in the movie Leto; how the current troubled times differ from the troubled times back then, and much more.

What kind of person would he be now, if he’d lived this long? I didn’t want to touch on this topic because I can’t say anything good. I think it would have been very hard for him to survive. When he left us he was 38 years old; what his health would be like now, 22 years later, is unknown, you understand. When everything commercial is totally alien to a person . . . It’s really difficult to live, to survive in Russia nowadays, even in comparison with those years that were so . . . precarious. Incomprehensible, troubled years. It’s become 100 times worse now. So, I can’t even imagine what he would have been like in this situation. Holding those same noncommercial punk festivals without money would be impossible.

To me personally it’s a great shame that Andrei couldn’t realize himself as an actor. Because in that capacity he was astonishing, profound. His origins as an actor were the main thing about him. Back in the day, he had left the theatrical world: he didn’t want to play Communist Youth League members. Well, it’s also unclear how it would have played out in the Soviet period. It all somehow fell by the wayside.

On his attitude towards politics: the events of 1993, Yeltsin, the war in Chechnya
I’m probably going to deeply disappoint you: Andrei tried as much as possible to separate himself from [politics], because he had had very negative experiences in his life. In the first place, there was his father, who went abroad permanently. (Panov’s father, a well-known ballet choreographer, abandoned his family and emigrated to Israel when his son was 14 — editor’s note.) In the Soviet period, that caused particular complications in one’s life: you were the “son of a traitor,” as it were. Then, you see, the word “punk” itself means “anti-social.” The punk denies his own social affiliations, he cannot take an interest in politics in principle. [Andrei’s] attitude towards [the Soviet Union] was of course negative, but he never went into it and didn’t discuss it.

How it was possible to play punk rock in the USSR in the late 70s
It’s very simple. At that time there was a whole cohort of music lovers who practically lived on the musical “can.” They bought records and hung out with each other. Basically, new records got to the Soviet Union rather quickly. There are at least four versions of our crowd first heard about the Sex Pistols: all of those stories are credible but different. The main thing is that Andrei found out about the Sex Pistols practically right away. Meaning that in 1976 the Sex Pistols album came out. [Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols actually came out in 1977 — TRR], and AS was formed in 1978. There was a crowd led by [Yevgeny] Yufit (one of the founders of Soviet “parallel cinema” — editor’s note). It included Andrei, Khua, [Alexei] Rybin [co-founder of Kino], and [Viktor] Tsoi. They fooled around, ran around the garbage dumps. Basically, they were having fun. Then they started shooting their escapades, first with photo cameras, later on video. This was where Yufit got his genre [necrorealism] and how Andrei formed AS. At first, it was all a lot of fun. But there’s nothing surprising about this: information was getting to us very quickly.

Was Panov a punk?
Andrei never called himself a punk at all. He very much disliked it when he was called that: he considered it a label. They called themselves “anarchists.” They denounced the established order. Another very telling point is that this crowd had this thing. You know the song “Commissar”? (Also known by such titles as “A Bullet Whizzed Past,” “My Steed is Black,” and others, the song is mistakenly thought to be a 20th-century Cossack folk song — editor’s note). The song has been attributed to any number of people. In point of fact, the song’s lyricist, Misha “Hefty” [Tinkelman], is alive and well. We’re friends. He lives in Petersburg. He’s just a humble person and doesn’t want to get mixed up in this story and that’s it. And it was like this: when they were at school, they had this crowd who amused themselves by making up songs à la the White Guards.

Since it was the Soviet period, this was the form their internal protest, or hooliganism, took. They liked that kind of aesthetic, and so on. “Commissar” is one of those songs. The aesthetic was White Guard-anarchist, at the level of denying the Soviet system. Is it really possible to compare this with the way Sid Vicious wore a swastika for the shock value? I don’t think it’s worth comparing them: all these stories are completely different. I wouldn’t draw any parallels at all.

They were schoolboys, and theirs was a very romantic generation. But the romanticism was expressed idiosyncratically, and it included White Guard lore. All of the people from this crowd who are still alive are still the same hopeless romantics. There’s nothing like them nowadays: people are very cynical and pragmatic.

How they met
We met at LenFilm studios in around 1985. They were filming Burglar (in which Leningrad rock stars Konstantin Kinchev and Oleg Garkusha also acted; Panov himself appears in one scene — editor’s note). A group of punks was hired as floor hands on the set: Alexander “Ricochet” Aksyonov, Yuri “Scandal” Katsyuk, Andrei “Willie” Usov. Alexei Rybin was also among them: his wife worked there officially. I’d been working there since 1983 in the costume shop. We had such a cheerful Komsomol committee, headed by Masha Solovtsova. Later, she also had a group, 88 Air Kisses, but unfortunately, Masha’s no longer with us. She would simply take the keys to the snack bar, and in the evenings we would go there, lock ourselves in, and hold improvised concerts. Andrei was still playing the guitar then, and he would be squatting down on his haunches with the other musicians in the middle of the room. And he still smoked then. Basically, the young people at the studio were very progressive and very tight-knit.

Andrei was a person who thought in his own utterly particular way, who hungered for knowledge, who read an awful lot. He had a good knowledge of history, including art history. He had his own brand of logic, which couldn’t be simplified. I remember him being asked whether it was true that he’d begun to play as soon as he heard Iggy Pop. He only laughed in reply. He was a very complicated figure psychologically.

On the character “Punk” in the movie Leto
It’s a confusing story: the screenplay was rewritten numerous times. I know this well, because I’m friends with the guys from Zoo (Mike Naumenko’s group – editor’s note). At one point, a girl from the film crew called me to ask whether I could find an actor who outwardly resembled Andrei. I expressed the opinion that playing Swine was madness: there was no way to make a copy of him. I proposed that instead we proceed from a prototype, keeping the concrete person somewhere in the back of our minds. Thus arose the character by the name “Punk,” who was conceived with Andrei in mind, of course. The most interesting thing is that he was the most authentic character in the whole movie. [Alexander] Gorchilin, who played him, was able to capture exactly that childlike quality, the purity of a harmless fifth-grade delinquent. That was the essential thing about Andrei. Even his mother, Liya Petrovna, admitted that he was really quite similar.

On punk rock in our time
For 22 years I’ve been organizing a festival in memory of Andrei. This year I’m doing it for the last time. You have to pay for everything, and I do it at my own expense. I’m a one-woman organizing committee. And so very little remains of the audience for whose sake I do it. More and more people drop in just like that, because it’s a freebie: entry is free, and they’re simply random people. In 2004, when I did it at Port [a music club in Petersburg], which is rather large, the place was packed: I gave out only 800 free passes. But now I can hardly herd them in. Many folks have died. There are ever fewer people to whom it matters, people whom I know by sight. And none of the musicians are left: everyone’s died. Its time has probably passed. I don’t think that punk rock is very viable. Each musical genre has its own audience, but there’s just no mass audience [for punk rock in Russia]; There was Korol i Shut, but that’s not punk rock at all. It was called punk, yes, but that’s another story. Andrei’s punk is pure punk, it’s not for the mass market.

All photos courtesy of Ona Razvalilas. Translated by Mary Rees

Andrei “Swine” Panov and Automatic Satisfiers play “Cucumber Lotion” live on Channel 2’s “Programma A” in 1992

Artemy Troitsky: Putin’s Last Autumn? (Song of the Ordinary Man)

Putin’s “Last Autumn”? (Song of the Ordinary Man)
Artemy Troitsky
Echo of Moscow
August 28, 2020

I’m an ordinary guy, not lacking in simplicity.
I’m just like him, I’m just like you.
I don’t see the point in talking to me —
It’s the same as talking to yourself.

The are the opening lines from Mike Naumenko’s “Song of the Ordinary Man.” Mike Naumenko died on August 27, 1991, twenty-nine years ago, an anniversary that many remembered, especially since in recent years Mike’s legacy has been held in high esteem, and rightly so. However, I’m sorry to say I won’t be talking about my late friend this time, but about something else entirely. I recalled Mike’s song because I am a one-hundred-percent “ordinary man” in Mike’s sense of the term, someone who has neither inside info nor insights, nor political science tricks up his sleeve, nor political party experience, and besides I am absolutely indifferent to conspiracy theories. At the same time, I am quite interested in what is happening in Russia, and I want to get to the bottom of it without resorting to any bells and whistles except for publicly available information and common sense.

For many months, the popular expert and lonely nightingale known as Valery Solovey has been trying to persuade his audience, weary with uncertainty, that this autumn 1) mass protests of unprecedented power will kick off; 2) the authorities will most likely be unable to cope with this “turbulence,” especially since 3) President Putin, due to “force majeure” circumstances, will hardly be able to be involved in this process and generally has been fading away; 4) although Putin has appointed a successor, there is little chance that the Kremlin’s scenario will be implemented; 5) consequently, we will probably be “living in a different country” by 2022. Needless to say, this all appears quite appetizing (to a person with my anarcho-libertarian tastes).

Because I live abroad permanently, I did not attend Solovey’s private lectures. I was too bashful to shout “Give me the details!” over the phone, so I didn’t think it possible to get into a debate or, on the contrary, celebrate our country’s imminent deliverance from the hated regime. But another dear “talker and troublemaker,” Gennady Gudkov, has just made a similar forecast (in an article entitled “Putin is leaving: the transition has already begun”). Gudkov is super-experienced: he’s an KGB officer, a former MP, and a prominent opposition figure. At the same time, like the “ordinary man” that I am, Gudkov does not rely on secret data from the backstreets of the deep state, instead making his conclusions based on news bulletins. And his conclusions, in short, are that Putin is going to leave the Kremlin, either due to unbearably bad health, or because he is just very tired. Accordingly, the people of Russia are going to be transported from one reality to another like a passenger changing planes.

This, unfortunately, is what I would like to argue with.

First of all, I don’t enjoy regularly watching Putin on screen, but from the bits and pieces I have come across, I wouldn’t conclude that he has physically and/or mentally noticeably thrown in the towel. Sixty-eight is a laid-back age: I am sixty-five, say, but I don’t do sports and fitness, I’m not under the care of doctors, I don’t inject Botox and stem cells, I don’t deny myself any “harmful excesses” (except smoking tobacco), and I feel great. And since when did a ruler’s feeble state affect anything in Russia? Let’s remember dear old Leonid Brezhnev, who could barely move his tongue, the zombie-like Chernenko, and late-period Yeltsin. Secondly, it is absolutely impossible that Putin would voluntarily deign to vacate the throne due to fatigue or anything else. He’s only going out on a gun carriage. In my opinion, it is quite clear: this is Lukashenko’s scenario, not F****ace’s. And we should note that the Reset One doesn’t even have Consanguineous Kolenka to fall back on, while iPhone Boy, the Buddhist, and the Reindeer Herder are . . . Even arguing this point is boring.

Nikolai “Kolenka” Lukashenko (far left) and his father, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, at a meeting “in the situation room of Independence Palace” on August 23, 2020. Screenshot from the Telegram channel Pul Pervogo. Courtesy of Mediazona Belarus

Nor do I think that the predictions of mighty grassroots turbulence are more realistic. Why should I? Russians have learned to put up with poverty, and empty store shelves, and “elections,” and the riot police. Russians who haven’t learned to put with these things have left the country and will continue to leave it: as many who can get out will get out as soon as the quarantine is lifted. What happened on Maidan and is happening in Belarus is regarded by the majority of the Russian populace as a nightmare, while the minority sees it as a miracle, an impossible miracle. The only obvious reaction to the events in Belarus has been on the darned social networks. In tiny Lithuania, fifty thousand people turned out for a rally of solidarity with the rebellious people of Belarus; in Tallinn, two or three thousand people lined up in a chain; in Moscow, a couple of hundred young people protested outside the Belarusian embassy on Maroseyka, most of them Belarusian nationals. And what about the Russian city of Khabarovsk? Everyone is, like, amazed at the resilience of the protesters (for the time being it’s as if they’re talking to a brick wall), but only solo picketers come out in support of them in other parts of Russia. Or have I fallen behind the times in my own little corner of Europe, and it’s just the good weather that is to blame for everything? And in the autumn Russians are going to cut loose and go bonkers?

This is how Mike’s song ends:

If you ask me what the moral is,
I will turn my gaze into the misty distance
And I’ll tell you: I’m sorry,
But, by God, I don’t know what the moral is.
We live the way we lived before,
And we’ll live that way until we die,
And if we live like this,
That means that’s how we should live!

Mike always spat out the last line with fury. I don’t know whether this was the desperate rage of a stoic or the impotent rage of a fatalist . . . Let’s hope, in any case, that I’m wrong.

Artemy Troitsky is a well-known Russian journalist and musical critic. Thanks to Comrade Koganzon for the heads-up. Thanks to TL, VL, NK, and AR for helping me to identify the Belarusian and Russian supervillains mentioned at the end of the fifth paragraph. Translated by the Russian Reader

Mike Naumenko, “Summer (A Song for Tsoi)”

Mike Naumenko, “Summer (A Song for Tsoi)” (1982)

Summer!
I’m sizzled like a burger.
I got time, but no money,
But I don’t care.

Summer!
I bought myself a paper.
I got a paper, but no beer.
And I’m going to look for one.

Summer!
There’s a jam session today at the Lensovet.
There will be this, and there will be that.
Should I go there?

Summer!
All the rowdies wear brass knuckles,
They must have a vendetta.
However, this is rubbish. Yes, yes, yes!

Summer!
There is no escape from mosquitoes,
And in the stores there is no DEET.
We hold donors in high esteem.

Summer!
It will be the death of me.
Quick, my carriage, my carriage!
However, kvass will also do.

Summer!
My pants are worn shiny like a coin.
A cigarette is smoking in my mouth.
I’m going for a swim in the pond.

Summer!
Recently I heard somewhere
That a comet was coming
And that then we would all die, all die.

Source of original lyrics in Russian. “Summer” was released on the album Mike: LV (1982), which you can enjoy in its entirety for free on Spotify. The video, above, features photographs by the great Petersburg underground photographer Boris Smelov. Photo and translation by the Russian Reader

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Another End of an Era: Pinta Shot Bar to Close in Central Petersburg

27516667_Uz6EIITJ8gSeQmxiI-lO-9qtpf5au7QyC2t71lK9-a4 — Pinta Shot Bar on Stremyannaya Street in Central Petersburg

In the last ten or fifteen some years, signs of the city’s extinction have been coming hot and heavy, tumbling into view one after another. A few more years, and there will be nothing left of the late-Soviet and perestroika-era Leningrad/post-perestroika Petersburg where we misspent so many years of our youth and felt perfectly at home, despite the fact the ex-capital of All the Russias could never be described as homely. TRR

* * * * *

One of Petersburg’s Oldest Shot Bars to Close on Stremyannaya Street
Bum aga
June 27, 2017

One of Petersburg’s oldest shot bars [ryumochnaya], located at 22 Stremyannaya Street, is closing. [Known officially as Pinta or “The Pint,”] it has been in operation for over thirty years.

Sources at the bar confirmed the bar’s impending closure to us, but refrained from revealing the rationale behind the decision. According to unconfirmed reports, the establishment has been purchased by a third party. It will close on Sunday.

Urban legend has it the shot bar on Stremyannaya was frequented during different periods by writers Sergei Dovlatov and Joseph Brodsky, and rock musician Mike Naumenko, since it was near the popular so-called Saigon Café. Historian Lev Lurye told Bumaga that Brodsky and Dovlatov were unlikely to have visited the bar. It opened in the mid 1980s, after both had emigrated from the Soviet Union.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Ksenia Astafieva for the heads-up. Photo courtesy of Foursquare and Ksenia N.