за Гоголя! / For Gogol!



Spotted in the filological faculty gardens of St. Petersburg State University: a sculpture depicting a sort of homemade steampunk tank with a flag bearing the slogan "за Гоголя" (For Gogol). A very Russian joke.

So, Blok.....

1st May

 

Pipeline | Russian

Вытяжки

 

когда выходишь на балкон
прикреплённый к стене на 15-м этаже
попадаешь на воздух как в космос
потянись и дотронься рукой
пробегись по нему
как по карте звёздного неба
у себя на стене


всё что знала она
из чего состоит человек
исчезает в объятьях другого
пропадает в законах природы


ныне думаешь обо всём об этом
на ином уровне
кислород тебе больше не нужен
дотягиваешься и хватаешь
кометы за хвост
отвечаешь огнём на её вопросы
о законах природы


отдохни на краю на 15-м этаже
ощути по собой городское
жаркое жерло
вытяжки трубы метро


тянешься хватаешься за воздух
мечты на невидимых проводах
эти вытяжки каналы и связи
привели нас на остров








Alan Jude Moore / Перевод с английского Александра Беляева (Translation from English by Alexander Belyaev)

Glossary IV

Iodine (Page 41) - Tobolsk was one of the holding points for the Tsarist Romanov family en route to Ekaterinburg, following the revolution in Russia. Many Russians of Polish, Ukrainian and German ethnicity were sent to Siberia at the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War (WWII). Many were sent so as to remove them from Moscow and the front but also to employ their expertise in setting up industrial enterprises east of the Urals. Alexander Menn was a highly respected theologian in the (liberal) Russian Orthodox Church. He was murdered in 1990.

The Palace (Page 45) - The Palace Square, outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg is where, in January 1905, crowds of demonstrators were cut down by the Imperial Guard on what became known as "Bloody Sunday".


Next, Mandelstam

Glossary III

Fine Art (Page 20) - The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow houses one of the largest collections of art in Russia. It is, along with the Tretykov Gallery, one of the most popular art museums in Moscow. In Russia, men are still conscripted to do national service. At the moment it consists of two years service in the army (often border duty) or one year in the navy. The blackened remains of a violin refers to "The Burned-out Violin" by Fernandez Armand, on display in the Pushkin Museum.

Main Street Bombs (Page 25) - There's a story in the New York Times about suicide bombings in Moscow and Russia during 2003 that lists a number of attacks that took place that year. The following February, there was an attack on the Moscow metro which killed dozens of commuters and injured well over 100. In September 2004, there was another suicide bomb attack, this time on the Rizhskaya metro station off Prospekt Mira. Ten by-standers were killed, and many more injured, when the bomb was detonated near the station entrance. The station is located beside the busy Krystovskiy supermarket.

July 10th 2003 - The police arrest a Chechen woman after she tries to detonate a bomb outside a cafe on Tverskaya Street, one of Moscow's main shopping strips. An explosives expert dies trying to defuse the bomb. The footage of the FSB officer been thrown across the street was shown on television.

December 9th 2003 - A suicide bomber blew herself up outside the National Hotel in the centre of Moscow, killing 6 and seriously wounding 13 people. The attack took place within a few hundred metres of the Kremlin, Red Square and the Duma (Russian Parliament). The bomb exploded just before 11am on a cold, snowy morning.


Next, Iodine & The Palace

The Monument to the Conquerors of Space

I received some copies of Lost Republics this week and I noticed that I neglected to tell the publisher, Salmon Poetry (who have done a wonderful job by the way), what the monument on the cover is actually called.

It's called the monument To The Conquerors of Space and it's located in the All-Russian Exhibition Centre (commonly referred to as VDNKh) in Moscow. The cover photo was taken by my brother, Brian Moore.

The base of the monument houses The State Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics which is well worth a look if you ever find yourself at the far end of Prospekt Mira.

It's an astonishing place, VDNKh, part theme park to a state that is no more, part souvenir market and part antiquated funfair. It's both slightly at odds with modern Moscow and a bizarre window on what makes Moscow what it is. The monument To the Conquerors of Space is one of the more memorable structures in the park; it, of course, commemorated one of the most important scientific achievements of the Soviet Union but also represents key aspirations of contemporary Russia. All over Moscow are reminders of things that have been done, monuments to past achievements, milestones and wars. The city is increasingly defined, however, by its new structures and decorations; by a desire to not fall behind, to not simply be sucked up into history.

Moscow Calling

Poems from "BLACK STATE CARS" were recently published in Russian by the Moscow literary journal, NOVAYA JUNOST.

Glossary V

Mandelstam (pg 36) - Osip Mandelstam was a Russian poet (although born in Warsaw), exiled by the Stalinist authorities to Vladivostok where he died in 1938. He spent time in Voronezh, a city about 800 km south of Moscow.

Several Russian nuclear submarines were named after cities heavily involved in the Second World War (or the Great Patriotic War as it is known in Russia). One of these vessels was named after Voronezh but the most well known is probably the ill-fated Kursk.


Next, Ostia