Tag: street art

I Had a Dream

“The USA is the archenemy.” This photo was taken by my friend M. on a recent walkabout in Petersburg.

I had a dream before finally waking up today.

My husband telephoned, saying that he had been working in Pushkin today (which never happened, but okay), and couldn’t come home. I asked why he couldn’t—it was just past six in the evening, according to the clock.

“Just you take a look at the sky,” he replied. “It’s as black as pitch. It’s impossible to travel, you can’t see a thing. It’s probably a shitstorm—a big one, the final one.”

I looked at the sky, and it actually was black. Incredibly low fluffy white clouds floated past, lit up from within by something. Right under these clouds a building was being built; it was already six floors tall. Little devils rode on the clouds, grimacing and pulling up people who were clinging to the edges. The entire scene seemed quite tiny to me.

I told my husband what I saw.

“What is that huge thing they’re building?” I asked. “And who are those people clinging to the clouds?”

My husband was quite surprised.

“They’re building a fence around our beautiful motherland, the tallest fence in the world. Those are people who didn’t leave in time. The little devils are having fun with them by picking them up, but no one knows where they’ll throw them off. They just hope it’s on the other side of the fence.”

That was when I woke up.

Source: Marina Varchenko (Facebook), 23 April 2023. Translated by A Former Petersburger

They Know What They’re Doing

A piece of street art featuring a crucified Jesus Christ and two soldiers with no insignia on their uniforms has appeared on Vasilievsky Island’s Kosaya Liniya. As the author of the work, artist Vano Bogomaz, writes on Instagram, it is a collage that uses images from the internet and reproductions of Diego Velasquez’s painting Christ Crucified.

In his description of the work, Bogomaz quotes the words of Jesus on the cross: “Forgive them, for they not what they do.”

“Two thousand years have passed, and yet we still can’t stop doing evil,” Bogomaz writes. The work was occasioned by Good Friday.

Here we give our readers a glimpse of what the collage looks like and how passersby reacted to it.

Source: “‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do’: We show you street art on Vasilyevsky Island featuring crucified Christ and soldiers,” Bumaga, 8 April 2023. All photos by Andrei Bok for Bumaga. Translated by Hecksinductionhour

Ivan Kudryashov: An Anti-War Street Artist in Tver

“Fuck the War”: a street art piece attributed to Ivan Kudryashov, photographed in Tver on 1 May 2022. Photo courtesy of Solidarity Zone

Ivan Kudryashov: Tver resident accused of planning arson of military enlistment office

The Telegram channel Stasia and Letters reports that Tver activist Ivan Kudryashov is in a pretrial detention center, charged with planning to set fire to a military enlistment office.

It is reported that Kudryashov repeatedly carried out anti-war protests in Tver. He was arrested on September 30 and charging with “preparing to commit a terrorist act” (per Article 30.1 and Article 205 of the Russian Federal Criminal Code). If found guilty, he faces a maximum prison sentence of eleven years and three months.

Kudryashov is, possibly, the author of the resonant “Fuck the War” street art pieces at bus stops in Tver. In any case, the VK page “Ivan Kudryashov” contains an entry about them, dated September 22.

Stasia and Letters quotes a letter from Andrei Trofimov, accused of making anti-war statements, who was held in the same cell as Kudryashov for three weeks:

“[Ivan Kudryashov] was born in the city of Bologoye and grew up in an orphanage and, later, with a foster family in Torzhok, Tver Region. He graduated from an eleven-year school. After school, he enrolled in the economics department at Tver State University. In the second year, he dropped out of university and did his obligatory military service in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. After that he lived in Tver and worked as a fitter at a train carriage factory. At school, he liked mathematics and was a checkers champion. He is fond of contemporary music, and is also a fan of the British TV series Sherlock.”

It is reported that Ivan Kudryashov is now in solitary confinement, which means it is especially important to write to him.

✉️📦 Address for letters and parcels:

Kudryashov Ivan Valeryevich (born 1996)

141 Vagazhanov Street

Pretriel Detention Center No. 1

Tver 170010 Russian Federation

(It is possible to send letters via the FSIN-Pismo service.)

#prisoners#solidarity #nowar#writing letters

Source: Solidarity Zone, 5 December 2022. Translated by the Russian Reader. People living outside Russia will not be able to use the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service’s FSIN-Pismo service. It is also probably impossible or nearly impossible to send parcels to Russian detention facilities from abroad. In many cases, however, you can send letters (which must written in or translated into Russian) via the free, volunteer-run service RosUznik, but as of this writing Mr. Kudryashov has not appeared on their list of addressees. You can also ask me (avvakum@pm.me) for assistance and advice in sending letters.

Darya Apahonchich: #outdoorwallpaper

darya-wallpaper-2b

[darya apahonchich]

our private life has been invaded by the public, by the state. our borders are not where they used to be.

but you cannot order people not to be poor, you cannot order them to keep their distance if they have nowhere to hide or stand apart.

i have turned my house inside out with wallpaper.

#outdoorwallpaper
a tiny city apartment poem

darya-wallpaper-1a

1.
we
urge you
not to drink
from the common
cup
of poverty

darya-wallpaper-1b

darya-wallpaper-2a

2.
we have wallpaper and you have wallpaper
and the virus flies freely
in dwellings
only you come to us
with fines and billy clubs,
but you don’t invite us to your house

darya-wallpaper-2aa

darya-wallpaper-3a

3.
what if
what if
my body has become
home to the virus
I think
I am caring
for my loved ones,
but in fact
I am destroying them.
what if
what if
my heart has become
home to
the virus of violence?

darya-wallpaper-3b

Darya Apahonchich has been posting the texts and photographs of her outdoor wallpaper poems on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks to her for her permission and her assistance in republishing them here. Translated by the Russian Reader

#FREESENTSOV

#FREESENTSOV (MARYCULA).JPGNach einem Showprozess folgt 20 Jahre Zwangszeit für dem Filmmacher Oleg Sentsov und zeigt uns den Neostalinismus vom System: Putin. Die FIFA bleibt feige und stumm. Schluss mit der Menschenverachtung – sofortige Freilassung von Oleg Sentsov!

A show trial is followed by twenty years of hard time for Oleg Sentsov and demonstrates the neo-Stalinism of Putin’s system. FIFA remains cowardly and silent. Put an end to the inhumanity: release Oleg Sentsov immediately! Poster by Marycula

Photographed by the Russian Reader at R.A.W. Gelände in Berlin-Friedrichshain, on April 1,  2019

#FREESENTSOV