Small memories Artistbook

Moscow mayor desided to destroy nearly 4 000 five-storey homes by the whole districts around different parts of the city. My home is one of them.

This artist book is devoted to my childhood memories of my home and the neighborhood in which I grew up.

artist book five-storey building childhood memories district neighborhood home

As far as the homes would be distructed by the whole districts, my neighborhood would change dramaticly. I will never see it again as it was, so I collected small memories - step by step - why one or another part of neighborhood was important to me, what was my first or bright memories, some things that dear to my heart.

There is famous Soviet poem of P. Kogan about person who desired the changes and it expressed in his love to the angles (or triangle - as far as his shape is close to this emotion). He hated shapeless and limp round.

There is also "an answer" poem of N. Korzhavin, who anxiously perceived the changes as the destruction of settled life. He loved the round for it's harmony and balance.

Nowadays it seems to me that both persons are met. I can't avoid the changes or influence significantly on the situation, but I feel how the previous life is breaking.

It's more important to me, as I spent early childhood in grandmother home which we had to sell. I lost the place of carefree time and now will lose the home where I grew up.

When I was little lift to the fifth floor was like a test of resistance - it was important not to slow down the pace of the climb to show someone (really - who?), I'm not afraid of difficulties and obstacles. And it's been quite clear on the last flight of stairs I had to accelerate and climb not at each step, and already stepping over one. Dramatically opened up the free space above the head and the window on the platform between the fourth and fifth floors were a symbol that you are home and signal that it's time to show resistance.

Then I got older and stopped to hurry, but the tradition to transcend the penultimate step in last march kept to the 7-8 class.

Our house was always filled with sunlight in the morning, and the refrigerator and all window sills were full of houseplants. I remember sister or mom had a bottle of something and poured. But when we've had a parrot (who was finally able to live more than a year), had to save the fern on the refrigerator from him.

Mother cooked apple pie on weekends and the smell and the sunlight became for me the symbols of comfort and of our home.

As a child I always was afraid of the dark. But the most terrible was that my room was the door to the pantry. When it was dark it always seemed to me that the door hiding the darkness, which will silently get out and absorb all around.

In fact, inside the pantry was always packed with things from floor to ceiling.

In the childhood it seemed to me that the perfect day is when you wake up at 8 am, have a breakfast, watch the Simpsons and untill 10 am ride in the park on a bicycle. So the day was a successfull.

In childhood, the surrounding area seemed a whole trip to unknown worlds in the side of Federal Avenue, Park, Moscow, Novogireevo, hospital and neighboring streets they somehow miraculously linked. And that was very responsibly – know where to throw the garbage in every areas. Although now I can say that you just leave the house and go to one of the four sides.

This crossroad seemed to me the threshold into the adult world – he was always more active and noisy than other crossroads and streets near the house, public transport, which could take you to the distant areas, the road to the store or to the subway, passed through this place. In childhood when two oncoming tram crossed during a turn, I looked into the open space between them and made a wish. It was a special moment.

Shop "Komus" has been here as long as I can remember, we bought ice cream "Taganka" or "Cherry in chocolate" in summer in the stall on the corner and later in high school I took four years went to the high school to the trolley 77 (which is now also being desroyed across Moscow).

As a child I was often sick and my mom took me to physical therapy to KUF in the hospitale and to the doctor through a small park with the stele – monument to the Afghans. In this park I learned to ride a bike, and did not ride downhill in the winter. And on the way my mom we played the words with letter "P" without beginning or end.

It was always a trip to a nearby town. You can go to Novogireevo metro (what we did if we were late), but the great thing was to go by tram. In Novogireevo we found ourselves periodically: there was a good children's dentist, art Studio, movie theater Kyrgyzstan. I remember in junior classes in the cinema there were shows with clowns and magicians and the first ten who came were presented hamsters. But my parents did not taken me to such shows.