Vlada Ladnaya
(Ïîâåñòü îïóáëèêîâàíà â ñáîðíèêå "Êîðîëåâà Åëèçàâåòà Âòîðàÿ", âðó÷¸ííîì êîðîëåâå íà 70-ëåòèå å¸ ïðàâëåíèÿ)
ALICE’S MAGICAL OLD AGE
(abbreviated)
Documentary phantasmagoria
In the work, real facts
and fiction are mixed.
Claims about the author’s fiction and interpretations are not accepted.
May 8th
CASTLE WITH A BUST OF LENIN
A purple-and-scarlet Gamayun looked down from the mural at the visitors.
«It’s rash to choose this as a symbol», I thought. «Legend has it that the prophetic Gamayun
prophesies misfortunes».
But then it started spinning…
I saw a red brick castle with small Gothic turrets, weathervanes, ivy on the wall, and a royal-lace
cast-iron ceremonial staircase. But then this image began to disintegrate into pixels.
A fragment of an antique column. A children’s slide with a fan, like Carlson’s, and it seems that it is
about to take off. A Buddha with a broken head. Electric chair. A bust of Lenin, whose pedestal is covered
with fragments of Gzhel ceramics, and forget-me-nots grow from the remains of a stuck teapot.
A huge white hall, with columns, with five-meter ceilings, with windows from floor to top,
behind them an alley of ancient lime trees. And in the hall there is an Indian kayak, a spectator
stand and a swing in the form of fabulous crescents with a snub profile.
Canteen. Brutal brick walls. A pyramid in the ceiling. The vase is a woman’s head, spirals of
flowers grow out of it. An old piano - the insides out. Oriental music. Roosters are singing outside
the window.
This is a Guslitsa, a creative estate in the village of Ilyinsky Pogost of the Yegoryevsky district.
It’s about ninety kilometers from Moscow in a straight line. What kind of exoticism can there
be? What are the wonders of the 21st century?
But - another world.
So different that it is almost parallel.
You are inundated with information so diverse and strange that there is a desire to secretly
touch everything here with your hands: «Is this real? And in general, where am I?»
Villages with the name Pogost are the most ancient in Russia. Princess Olga created this
administrative unit. In such places, the princely squad collected tribute from the population.
That is, the village is more than a thousand years old.
I ask the guests of the Gusli where they are from.
Someone is traveling from Nepal to Yamal. Someone from here is going to France. Someone
arrived from Germany and settled here for a long time.
71
Prose
A thousand years have passed, but the peculiarity of the place is the same: it is a caravanserai
of people from all over the world.
And this is not the only artistic repetition.
Since the 17th century, Old Believers have settled in the surrounding villages, hiding in the
local swampy, impenetrable forests from the arbitrariness of the tsarist government. They were
talented people, and wherever they settled, they opened workshops to create art objects: icons,
handwritten books and collections of notes for spiritual singing (the so-called hook writing).
How did it happen that now creative people have found shelter in the Ilyinsky Churchyard again?
It seems that some places, as if alive, are drawn to a certain work. And no matter how the
historical epochs and the authorities change, the area returns to its work again and again.
And finds suitable ascetics for this.
This castle is actually a former textile factory of the Morozovs, famous patrons of the late
19th - early 20th century. Suffice it to recall that they provided assistance to the Moscow
Art Theater, maintained a private opera where Chaliapin sang, supported artists, actors, and
musicians.
Did the owner of the art residence Irina Nikolaeva accidentally appear in the village, or did
higher forces call her to the service of art, as the Morozovs once did?
HELLO, I’M ALICE
My name is Alice. And I recently retired. Alice has grown old.
And I came to Guslitsa before I died. The doctors found a severe heart defect in me and let me
live for three months. Enough to write a new book here.
Just don’t tell anyone. This is my little secret.
GLUCOPHONES AND TABOR
Tea room.
And again the harmony of the incompatible, the paradoxes of space and time.
A luxurious collection of musical instruments is kept here. Shamanic tambourines, glucophones
(similar to cobblestones rolled by the sea, painted in Indian style, emit cosmic music), sharok (ancient
Russian rattle, usually made of birch bark), djembe (West African drum in the shape of a cup),
Moroccan drums, framed Arabic rik drums (with cymbals), Indian percussion, Tajik, tambourine.
And also a variety of flutes and trumpets, accordion, lute, rattles. Rav - looks like a flying saucer with
the sound of a harp.
And there is also a collection of masks - Venetian and Indian. A Chinese-style wardrobe and
an Indian chest of drawers (things are specially aged here). Nearby are Japanese netsuke, Khmer
carvings, a beautiful painting by Andrei Timofeev, slightly reminiscent of Bakst’s work, ceramics in
the Wabi-Sabi style by Vladimir Solomatov and his students. Mystical polyhedra by Dmitry Khabarov,
the author of educational puzzles, three-dimensional tic-tac-toe.
All this is placed in a small winter garden. It looks like a fragment of an abandoned city in the
heart of the jungle, like in a cartoon about Mowgli. Somewhere in the depths there must be idols,
ancient treasures, poisonous snakes, maybe death…
72
Almanac
«Queen Elizabeth II»
BLACK THEATER
A huge coal-black space. There are galleries on top, because of them it all resembles
Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. Chaotically scattered chairs, poufs and cushions for the audience
make this place look like a kind of saving ark. And the whole complex resembles a black mass.
In the hall there is an exhausted boy with a tuft of beard, looking like a mouse who has become
a monk and has been drained of blood by fasts and prayers, and girls with rings in their noses.
THE LIGHT THAT HAS MADE ITS NEST
And again I was surrounded by «miracles»: a knight’s helmet on a shelf; a chandelier that
looked like a nest of brushwood. Lazy Karabas-Barabas in an astrological chlamydia performs steps
on children’s swings. And on a rustic bench in the courtyard, a girl in an Indian sari and a young man
in a turban are sitting and talking about the meaning of life. And chickens and geese roam around.
A ROCK GARDEN WITH A METEORITE AND TEA MASTERS
The salon at the tip of the spiral staircase - steps made of split logs, chains, an eerie feeling of
flying over the abyss - is called «Tea Cinema».
There are zodiac signs on the arches. There is a batik with Shiva on the wall. He has a cobra
instead of a scarf and a trident in his hand.
On the shelf is the head of an ancient deity.
- She didn’t smile before. And when she came to us, she began to smile with the mysterious
smile of the Mona Lisa», Alexander, the bartender, assures me.
ALEXANDER NOYABRSKY
Interview
The place is magical. Have you seen the local meteorite?
(I honestly admit that I haven’t seen it.)
And we rush to see the rock garden in the lobby, and in the center is really a huge boulder.
Makes an impression.
Above the garden is a copy of an Indian bas-relief depicting the god of love Kama. Next to the
gas apparatus and a powerful bike on a pedestal.
We return to the «Tea-cinema». I drink Indian tea in guslitsky.
- There are a lot of interesting people and artifacts here, Alexander continues. - Here is a carpet
under your feet.
- Persian. 19th century», I admired.
- yes. And he was lying in Hitler’s waiting room. Then Marshal Zhukov got it. And his greatgrandson,
also George, brought him here. I rolled it out and gave it to use.
An unusual person is Uncle Vanya. He’s the creator of the rooftop cafe here. Bakes absolutely
amazing bread. And a master of sports in tai chi chuan, this is a kind of martial arts.
There are many interesting artists working here. Alexander Zhelonkin, born into a family of
famous nuclear scientists who lived in Arzamas. He took the pseudonym Alexander Arzamas.
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Prose
Alexander Buldakov leads a yoga master class, the practice is based on sound healing. These are
his personal achievements.
There are 14 thousand square meters in total . m of creative space and 100 crazy people.
THE FIGHT IN THE RELIC FOREST
But they even made a video about it. Local authorities want to build an incinerator. And they
found no other place to put it in the relict juniper forest. Moreover, they are building a factory using
outdated technology, so very soon there will be nothing to breathe in this protected land of pine
forests. And the most disgusting thing, as always, no one asked the consent of the locals. People
remain hostages of local bureaucrats.
Residents come out to protest rallies. But no one is going to listen to their opinion yet.
THE CELLS IN THE PYRAMID AND THE TREASURE MAP
I’m at the reception. An African mask, a scarlet driftwood, a mirror in a baroque magnificent
frame on which bath brooms hang, announcements of master classes. A Guslitsa map, similar to
a treasure map. Slogans: «Not E..nutty, but a creative person». And «Think in a different format»,
written upside down.
CITIZENS CHILDREN
The names of the rooms: «Machine» (and there, however, is a real factory machine), «Clock»,
«Pyramid», «Cell».
A door, and an eye with wings is carved on it. I still don’t know where it led.
The staircase railings are made of old plumbing pipes, and laundry is dried in the pyramid, as
in the poor neighborhoods of Naples. The children drew a bust of Lenin (the one in the park), bigeared,
like Cheburashka. And a rainbow is waving over it instead of a red banner.
Here, too, adults are like children. Closer to night, girls in hoods fly out, looking like young
witches flying to the sabbath. A diva with a shaved head, in a pre-war plaid coat on a naked body,
in sneakers on bare feet.
Everyone just goes to rehearsal.
A courier with the face of Jesus appears from the darkness. Hands over a yellow envelope.
What if there are sacred truths in it?
All together it looks like a kindergarten and Baba Yaga’s hut with cones and brushwood. Or
maybe it’s an ashram? A student dorm? The communal paradise of the builders of socialism? A
monastery? A haven for talents driven by mercantile neighbors? A madhouse? A parallel world?
Everyone here is smiling and making hugs. No one forbids anything in creativity. Most are
vegetarians. And they sleep for 4 hours. We finished our artistic experiments late in the evening and
went to physical work: everyone does everything here by themselves. Everyone loves everyone and
works hard, as if creativity is obedience. Maybe it is?
If art were a religion, this place would be a sanctuary.
There are sons of the regiment. And these guys are the children of the universe, adopted and
loved by her.
74
Almanac
«Queen Elizabeth