I can see clearly now the rain has gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's going to be a bright, bright sunshiny day
I think I can make it now the pain has gone
And all of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's going to be a bright, bright sunshiny day
I think I can make it now the pain has gone
And all of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day
One of Faizal's favourites, this song was originally sung by American crooner Johnny Nash in 1972 but popularised by Jamaican reggae artist Jimmy Cliff in the film Cool Runnings in 1993. We played it on the road to Yaroslavl in our now classic road trip to Vologda. Although it's snazzy, it wasn't all that memorable at the time; in fact, the cheesy but catchy love song Ty dolzhna ryadom byt (It's Not That Simple) by Dima "Oh ain't I so cool" Bilan improbably put it in the shade to become the Song of the Trip. (This popular ballad actually placed second in the national competition to choose Russia's official entry to the Eurovision Song Contest in May 2005 in Kiev.) Today served as a new occasion to play the Nash-Cliff reggae hit, a day which started out all leaky and windy but ended with bales of laughter anyway.
Well to tell the story properly one has to go back to yesterday, at least for my Inessa and me.
It seems all reports about summer's demise were greatly exaggerated. Yesterday was -as the song goes- a very bright, bright sunshiny day, the sort you could wear a tee-shirt for. Dearie came to the flat at around 14.30 and caught me, as usual, not prepared to leave. I got myself finally ready an hour later, to go to an invitational event launch in the outskirts of Moscow recommended by my mavourneen.
Since it was pretty much my first time to drive to that part of town, it took some going to finally find our way to the place, which is located 25 km outside Moscow on MKAD ring road. (We made two wrong turns to Rublyova and to the town of Gorki-10 itself and had to go back en route. I also had to change money at the shopping arcade of the posh Zhukovka village for petrol.) We arrived at 16.30, thinking that perhaps the main event or whatever it was we were supposed to be there for was over. Well at least I thought so. My Inessa has a bit more sang froid than I do and was not at all flustered in the least bit. In fact when she tried to ask for the media coordinator who was to give her accreditation to the event in a 500-sqm chock-full of people running about it turned out the first person she asked was the very official she was looking for.
The event is called Project Artfield (Artpolye in Russian), which is organised by eponymous gallery owner Aidan Salakhova at a grazing field owned by First Stud Farm just off Gorki-10 on Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Shosse. Apart from Aidan Gallery, Stella Art, Regina, XL and VP Studio -all of which had stands at Art Moskva in May- also participated in this successor event to ArtKlyazma. Running through to 10 October (double ten, a lucky day for the Chinese!), Artfield features a couple of dozen of so-called "landscape sculptures" by 26 artists of different generations using different materials. Adhering to Salakhova's mantra that "the genre of monumental propaganda can be topical, even in post-Soviet times" most of the sculptures were outsize, such as two razor blades propped against each other, a knife sticking out and handcuffs, all made by Nice-based artist Philippe Perrin. Ducky and I found two works using huge letters very witty: one reads "ОЙ" on one side and "NO" on the other. Another sign, composed of 17 two-meter-tall pink letters in Cyrillic, reads "Schastye ne za gorami" (Happiness is not far away) by Boris Matrosov. The work that symbolises the exhibition is a life-size copy of the first Sputnik man-made satellite by Rostan Tavasiyev. Instead of Laika (first dog in space), there's a huge Duracell bunny inside. The other artists are Semen Agroskin, Marina Belova, Leonid Borisov, Bruni Lavrenty, Elena Yelagina, Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Yelena Kitaeva, Maxim Ksuta, Oleg Kulik, Konstantin Latyshev, Igor Makarevich, Diana Machulina, Nicola Ovchinnikov, Alexander Petrelli, Alexei Politov, Alexander Savko, Rostan Tavasiev, Alexei Upman, Tatiana Khengster, Sergei Shekhovtsov and Ewerdt Hilgemann.
At almost every public event my Inessa and I go to, guaranteed there's a spectacle of people (often members of the media) who embarass themselves by gouging on free food. It happened at that event at Shore House as well as the Sultanna Frantsuzova fashion show. Here at least it wasn't as embarrassing. People still grabbed food with very little restraint or decorum, as if they hadn't eaten in two days. (Ah well I guess I was a saté guerilla at Blue Elephant last night, as well.) My macushla and I had to share a plate between the two of us. On the way to look for a tree stump to sit on I handed a fork for this girl whom I saw sitting squat on the ground trying to eat salad with two knives.
On the way back we had to fill up on petrol at Lukoil near MKAD before going on our way. We took the road going to Krylatskoe and found ourselves back on the familiar Narodnogo Opolcheniya. Famished yet deciding we wanted something more different than Planeta Sushi or Il Patio we tried Fifth Avenue, a mall some five minutes on foot from Inessa's station along Ulitsa Marshala Biryuzova. Up on the third floor they had a branch of the popular beer restaurant on Taganka, Kolbasoff. We decided to eat instead at El Inka, a Spanish and Peruvian restaurant. In all it was, as Dearie described it, a perfect day.
Whatever ideas we had to continue the Saturday's enjoyment into Sunday were tweaked by the weather, which refused to go along with our script. Faizal told me Sasha was inviting us to have a picnic again just outside Moscow. The main event was tea with a family heirloom, Sasha's babushka's 120-year-old samovar. So we woke up to a very rainy day. Although I signed up for the impromptu outing I had yet to convince my muirnín that it was worth the trip. By midday the whole event was still a big question mark, although the rains had already slowed a bit. When Sasha finally confirmed after his English language lesson with Olya, it was way past 14.00. Ultimately Inessa decided to join us with the condition that she could only stay for two hours. That would've meant taking Balios with us. Faizal, however, insisted that we go in one car, adding that we would all go home together. (For some reason I got it into my head that we were going to join Sasha's family in some forest somewhere.)
After picking up Dearie at the McDo at Novoslobodskaya, we headed in the direction of Yakhroma on Dmitrovskoye Shosse. Just past MKAD we turned right toward Klyazma-2. In contrast with my forest-idea, we set up the samovar on a bench in Troitskoye, a rest area on the banks of the Klyazma Reservoir. There's actually a gravelly beach, but it's the lawn that fills up with river- and sunbathers. Desperately wishing for the remains of summer, we set up the samovar, bublik -a kind of Russian bagel-, honey, fruit preserves, dried mangoes and Cuvée Karsov red wine. Using lit briquettes Sasha was quickly able to get a fire going in the brass container. Despite the warmth of the samovar, the river breeze swept us up in its freezing embrace. With nothing but a flimsy cardigan I started to freeze; Sasha went over to the hotel next door and borrowed a dark-coloured windbreaker for me. That, however, was not enough; to warm up we had to jump up and down and shuffle from side to side. That prompted Sasha to call our gathering the "Crazy Penguin Picnic" - shades of the madness of Vologda! All we had to do now was do an endless song-cycle (sounds like Richard Wagner). It was actually loads of fun, drinking tea and wine while trying to keep warm! So despite the dampness we were able to have a fun picnic with his 1885 Tula samovar outdoors, thanks to Sasha's determination and resourcefulness.
Well to tell the story properly one has to go back to yesterday, at least for my Inessa and me.
It seems all reports about summer's demise were greatly exaggerated. Yesterday was -as the song goes- a very bright, bright sunshiny day, the sort you could wear a tee-shirt for. Dearie came to the flat at around 14.30 and caught me, as usual, not prepared to leave. I got myself finally ready an hour later, to go to an invitational event launch in the outskirts of Moscow recommended by my mavourneen.
Since it was pretty much my first time to drive to that part of town, it took some going to finally find our way to the place, which is located 25 km outside Moscow on MKAD ring road. (We made two wrong turns to Rublyova and to the town of Gorki-10 itself and had to go back en route. I also had to change money at the shopping arcade of the posh Zhukovka village for petrol.) We arrived at 16.30, thinking that perhaps the main event or whatever it was we were supposed to be there for was over. Well at least I thought so. My Inessa has a bit more sang froid than I do and was not at all flustered in the least bit. In fact when she tried to ask for the media coordinator who was to give her accreditation to the event in a 500-sqm chock-full of people running about it turned out the first person she asked was the very official she was looking for.
The event is called Project Artfield (Artpolye in Russian), which is organised by eponymous gallery owner Aidan Salakhova at a grazing field owned by First Stud Farm just off Gorki-10 on Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Shosse. Apart from Aidan Gallery, Stella Art, Regina, XL and VP Studio -all of which had stands at Art Moskva in May- also participated in this successor event to ArtKlyazma. Running through to 10 October (double ten, a lucky day for the Chinese!), Artfield features a couple of dozen of so-called "landscape sculptures" by 26 artists of different generations using different materials. Adhering to Salakhova's mantra that "the genre of monumental propaganda can be topical, even in post-Soviet times" most of the sculptures were outsize, such as two razor blades propped against each other, a knife sticking out and handcuffs, all made by Nice-based artist Philippe Perrin. Ducky and I found two works using huge letters very witty: one reads "ОЙ" on one side and "NO" on the other. Another sign, composed of 17 two-meter-tall pink letters in Cyrillic, reads "Schastye ne za gorami" (Happiness is not far away) by Boris Matrosov. The work that symbolises the exhibition is a life-size copy of the first Sputnik man-made satellite by Rostan Tavasiyev. Instead of Laika (first dog in space), there's a huge Duracell bunny inside. The other artists are Semen Agroskin, Marina Belova, Leonid Borisov, Bruni Lavrenty, Elena Yelagina, Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Yelena Kitaeva, Maxim Ksuta, Oleg Kulik, Konstantin Latyshev, Igor Makarevich, Diana Machulina, Nicola Ovchinnikov, Alexander Petrelli, Alexei Politov, Alexander Savko, Rostan Tavasiev, Alexei Upman, Tatiana Khengster, Sergei Shekhovtsov and Ewerdt Hilgemann.
At almost every public event my Inessa and I go to, guaranteed there's a spectacle of people (often members of the media) who embarass themselves by gouging on free food. It happened at that event at Shore House as well as the Sultanna Frantsuzova fashion show. Here at least it wasn't as embarrassing. People still grabbed food with very little restraint or decorum, as if they hadn't eaten in two days. (Ah well I guess I was a saté guerilla at Blue Elephant last night, as well.) My macushla and I had to share a plate between the two of us. On the way to look for a tree stump to sit on I handed a fork for this girl whom I saw sitting squat on the ground trying to eat salad with two knives.
On the way back we had to fill up on petrol at Lukoil near MKAD before going on our way. We took the road going to Krylatskoe and found ourselves back on the familiar Narodnogo Opolcheniya. Famished yet deciding we wanted something more different than Planeta Sushi or Il Patio we tried Fifth Avenue, a mall some five minutes on foot from Inessa's station along Ulitsa Marshala Biryuzova. Up on the third floor they had a branch of the popular beer restaurant on Taganka, Kolbasoff. We decided to eat instead at El Inka, a Spanish and Peruvian restaurant. In all it was, as Dearie described it, a perfect day.
Whatever ideas we had to continue the Saturday's enjoyment into Sunday were tweaked by the weather, which refused to go along with our script. Faizal told me Sasha was inviting us to have a picnic again just outside Moscow. The main event was tea with a family heirloom, Sasha's babushka's 120-year-old samovar. So we woke up to a very rainy day. Although I signed up for the impromptu outing I had yet to convince my muirnín that it was worth the trip. By midday the whole event was still a big question mark, although the rains had already slowed a bit. When Sasha finally confirmed after his English language lesson with Olya, it was way past 14.00. Ultimately Inessa decided to join us with the condition that she could only stay for two hours. That would've meant taking Balios with us. Faizal, however, insisted that we go in one car, adding that we would all go home together. (For some reason I got it into my head that we were going to join Sasha's family in some forest somewhere.)
After picking up Dearie at the McDo at Novoslobodskaya, we headed in the direction of Yakhroma on Dmitrovskoye Shosse. Just past MKAD we turned right toward Klyazma-2. In contrast with my forest-idea, we set up the samovar on a bench in Troitskoye, a rest area on the banks of the Klyazma Reservoir. There's actually a gravelly beach, but it's the lawn that fills up with river- and sunbathers. Desperately wishing for the remains of summer, we set up the samovar, bublik -a kind of Russian bagel-, honey, fruit preserves, dried mangoes and Cuvée Karsov red wine. Using lit briquettes Sasha was quickly able to get a fire going in the brass container. Despite the warmth of the samovar, the river breeze swept us up in its freezing embrace. With nothing but a flimsy cardigan I started to freeze; Sasha went over to the hotel next door and borrowed a dark-coloured windbreaker for me. That, however, was not enough; to warm up we had to jump up and down and shuffle from side to side. That prompted Sasha to call our gathering the "Crazy Penguin Picnic" - shades of the madness of Vologda! All we had to do now was do an endless song-cycle (sounds like Richard Wagner). It was actually loads of fun, drinking tea and wine while trying to keep warm! So despite the dampness we were able to have a fun picnic with his 1885 Tula samovar outdoors, thanks to Sasha's determination and resourcefulness.
