IGOR MOUK HIN M Y
I NTRO D U CTI O N BY ZAKHAR PRI LE PI N
photographs
IGOR MOUK HIN M Y
I NTRO D U CTI O N BY ZAKHAR PRI LE PI N
photographs
Page 9: Day of the city of Moscow, 1988. Pages 10-11: Zubovsky boulevard, Park Kultury metro station, 1996. Pages 12-13: Sofiyskaya embankment, restaurant, 2004. Pages 14-15: Okhotny Ryad street, opposition meeting, 1999 5
Page 9: Day of the city of Moscow, 1988. Pages 10-11: Zubovsky boulevard, Park Kultury metro station, 1996. Pages 12-13: Sofiyskaya embankment, restaurant, 2004. Pages 14-15: Okhotny Ryad street, opposition meeting, 1999 5
have been pumped with air and then deflated. We always seem to have either not enough of something or, the opposite, too much. If there is food, then it is usually not finished off. If there is coffee, then it is likewise not drunk up. Everything appears to be done in halves. As if someone has lived here, yet did not live to the right condition, now suspended in some semi-void. A man has covered his face with a cloth – he finds it unpleasant to breathe. Every second page, I want to close my eyes. I cannot look at this, it is too difficult. Again, I recognise myself, my neighbour, my country. Russia! What’s going on? I used to say: Moscow is like a frowsy and greedy duchess, lying back on a featherbed mattress. She loves herself, delights in herself, revels in herself. I said that Moscow does not sink. Moscow does not fly. Moscow stands, like a tree stump, in the middle of the country: no matter where you go, you will always stumble across it, bang against it. I said that every provincial aims for Moscow, just like the bear in the fairytale: “I’ll sit on a stump and eat a pie”. Now I see that Moscow has fallen out of love with herself. Her featherbed has rotted away, her pies have gone stale, her implied position is idiotic and senseless.
I D O N ’ T WA N T TO R E C O G N I S E MY OW N FAC E ... An essay by Zakhar Prilepin
The feeling that everyone is here purely by chance. That there should have been someone else in the frame, not him or her, who somehow landed in the picture, without themselves knowing the reason why. And now ready to take off out of the frame, only not knowing where to go. And we will never recall their faces. Our own faces. The feeling that the photographer wanted to snap someone else, not us. Or some other us. But we were the only ones there – no one else. We do not have any other Moscow for you. Or any other Russia. Few here are smiling. The only ones who smile are drunks and teenagers (and sometimes drunk teenagers). Wrong! Here is a girl who seems to be smiling. Only she is wearing a gasmask and holding a dildo on the top of her head. Everyone else, as a rule, looks sad, petty, sour. Not even a firework display can raise a smile. As if the fireworks were going off without any sound. As if they were giving them a headache. We are an extremely morose nation. There is only one photograph where everyone is smiling, looking at the sky. I immediately named this photograph The Second Coming. But it is the only one of its kind. It is just as well that you cannot see what they are all looking at. Especially as, if you leaf through fifty pages, you will see virtually the same crowd again. Only now they are sad: the coming did not take place. A girl hugs a boy and grieves. Very often, almost always, it is cold and damp here. Even the dogs are cold. One always feels most sorry for them. I can understand us, but what has a dog done to deserve this? Where did you take that photograph? Tell me, photographer! I will go and untie that dog. I will give it some warm milk – but only it and no one else.
12
The way the women dance – you want to turn a hosepipe on them. The men drink and piss in the same spot. The demonstrators look like holy fools. A hobgoblin sells the ultra-nationalist Zavtra newspaper. The members of Nashi have a primordial, pig-like stupidity about their faces. In the next photograph, neo-Nazis wear masks to conceal their neo-Nazi faces. Just imagine: you tear off a mask only to be confronted by the same faces you saw in the previous photograph, those pig-like people with rosy lips, who wear T-shirts showing the president. The Lenin on the red flag of the Communist demonstrators has grown old – he now looks like an autumn mushroom. A cluster of brides walk across Red Square, but just pass him by, pass him by. A cardboard Putin next to stone walls. Yavlinsky with his head in a puddle. Berezovsky has “traitor” written on his forehead. A mutant in a cocked hat emerges from a pale cloud. An awful lot of filth (cops) and down-andouts. The filth looks like filth, because some things can never be eradicated. They will never become real “militiamen” or “policemen”. The cops always wear a lot of clothes. The women always wear very little clothing. Nudity is disgusting. Naked people are like melon scraps, only worse. It is surprising that there are no garbage flies swarming above every photograph of a naked body. The girls are always trying to undress even further, but there is no need, no need, please, stop it this instant! One girl has written “bitch” on her chest. Good, at least that is honest. But all the same – put it away! There is nothing more revolting than a naked person. We have entered the age of glamour with white, blotchy skin. Loose flab hangs at our sides, as if we
13
There is always something being celebrated here or preparations underway to hold some concert. But you probably know that people only enjoy it while they are drunk. The minute they are not, they find it obnoxious. No one works here. People are, in general, not occupied in anything useful. A man goes out into the field, gives a wheel a kick and it trundles across the field. He has done something. The wheel tumbles along. The whole country is tumbling. No one will ever tell us what we were doing all these years and where the fruits of our labours are. I sought the answer here, in this album, leafing through every page, first one by one, then opening it at various pages. But I did not find it. Astronauts no longer head for the moon. They have come back down to earth and now break up demonstrations in their spacesuits. An old man with medals stands with a balloon and waits to be carried off into the sky. Not a single face reflects any thoughts. If people are sober, they wear an expression of bewilderment. They do not know how they ended up here. An accordionist plays in the sleet. What is he playing? What on earth is he playing? What is that tune?
have been pumped with air and then deflated. We always seem to have either not enough of something or, the opposite, too much. If there is food, then it is usually not finished off. If there is coffee, then it is likewise not drunk up. Everything appears to be done in halves. As if someone has lived here, yet did not live to the right condition, now suspended in some semi-void. A man has covered his face with a cloth – he finds it unpleasant to breathe. Every second page, I want to close my eyes. I cannot look at this, it is too difficult. Again, I recognise myself, my neighbour, my country. Russia! What’s going on? I used to say: Moscow is like a frowsy and greedy duchess, lying back on a featherbed mattress. She loves herself, delights in herself, revels in herself. I said that Moscow does not sink. Moscow does not fly. Moscow stands, like a tree stump, in the middle of the country: no matter where you go, you will always stumble across it, bang against it. I said that every provincial aims for Moscow, just like the bear in the fairytale: “I’ll sit on a stump and eat a pie”. Now I see that Moscow has fallen out of love with herself. Her featherbed has rotted away, her pies have gone stale, her implied position is idiotic and senseless.
I D O N ’ T WA N T TO R E C O G N I S E MY OW N FAC E ... An essay by Zakhar Prilepin
The feeling that everyone is here purely by chance. That there should have been someone else in the frame, not him or her, who somehow landed in the picture, without themselves knowing the reason why. And now ready to take off out of the frame, only not knowing where to go. And we will never recall their faces. Our own faces. The feeling that the photographer wanted to snap someone else, not us. Or some other us. But we were the only ones there – no one else. We do not have any other Moscow for you. Or any other Russia. Few here are smiling. The only ones who smile are drunks and teenagers (and sometimes drunk teenagers). Wrong! Here is a girl who seems to be smiling. Only she is wearing a gasmask and holding a dildo on the top of her head. Everyone else, as a rule, looks sad, petty, sour. Not even a firework display can raise a smile. As if the fireworks were going off without any sound. As if they were giving them a headache. We are an extremely morose nation. There is only one photograph where everyone is smiling, looking at the sky. I immediately named this photograph The Second Coming. But it is the only one of its kind. It is just as well that you cannot see what they are all looking at. Especially as, if you leaf through fifty pages, you will see virtually the same crowd again. Only now they are sad: the coming did not take place. A girl hugs a boy and grieves. Very often, almost always, it is cold and damp here. Even the dogs are cold. One always feels most sorry for them. I can understand us, but what has a dog done to deserve this? Where did you take that photograph? Tell me, photographer! I will go and untie that dog. I will give it some warm milk – but only it and no one else.
12
The way the women dance – you want to turn a hosepipe on them. The men drink and piss in the same spot. The demonstrators look like holy fools. A hobgoblin sells the ultra-nationalist Zavtra newspaper. The members of Nashi have a primordial, pig-like stupidity about their faces. In the next photograph, neo-Nazis wear masks to conceal their neo-Nazi faces. Just imagine: you tear off a mask only to be confronted by the same faces you saw in the previous photograph, those pig-like people with rosy lips, who wear T-shirts showing the president. The Lenin on the red flag of the Communist demonstrators has grown old – he now looks like an autumn mushroom. A cluster of brides walk across Red Square, but just pass him by, pass him by. A cardboard Putin next to stone walls. Yavlinsky with his head in a puddle. Berezovsky has “traitor” written on his forehead. A mutant in a cocked hat emerges from a pale cloud. An awful lot of filth (cops) and down-andouts. The filth looks like filth, because some things can never be eradicated. They will never become real “militiamen” or “policemen”. The cops always wear a lot of clothes. The women always wear very little clothing. Nudity is disgusting. Naked people are like melon scraps, only worse. It is surprising that there are no garbage flies swarming above every photograph of a naked body. The girls are always trying to undress even further, but there is no need, no need, please, stop it this instant! One girl has written “bitch” on her chest. Good, at least that is honest. But all the same – put it away! There is nothing more revolting than a naked person. We have entered the age of glamour with white, blotchy skin. Loose flab hangs at our sides, as if we
13
There is always something being celebrated here or preparations underway to hold some concert. But you probably know that people only enjoy it while they are drunk. The minute they are not, they find it obnoxious. No one works here. People are, in general, not occupied in anything useful. A man goes out into the field, gives a wheel a kick and it trundles across the field. He has done something. The wheel tumbles along. The whole country is tumbling. No one will ever tell us what we were doing all these years and where the fruits of our labours are. I sought the answer here, in this album, leafing through every page, first one by one, then opening it at various pages. But I did not find it. Astronauts no longer head for the moon. They have come back down to earth and now break up demonstrations in their spacesuits. An old man with medals stands with a balloon and waits to be carried off into the sky. Not a single face reflects any thoughts. If people are sober, they wear an expression of bewilderment. They do not know how they ended up here. An accordionist plays in the sleet. What is he playing? What on earth is he playing? What is that tune?
Top: Vorobyovy Gory (Sparrow Hills), smog caused by forest fires, 2010. Bottom: Tushino airfield, festival Autoexotica, 2010. Left: Kolomenskoye, Moscow City Day, Theatre Festival, 2010 15
Top: Vorobyovy Gory (Sparrow Hills), smog caused by forest fires, 2010. Bottom: Tushino airfield, festival Autoexotica, 2010. Left: Kolomenskoye, Moscow City Day, Theatre Festival, 2010 15