On my way back from China to Moscow I stopped a couple of days in Chita (Russia) and around. I dedicated the day before my flight to Moscow to continue my project " In the Russian Est", a specular homage to "In the America West" by master of photography and portraiture Richard Avedon.
Read MoreImperium - Chapter 1/a: "Rendering the empire's capital"
From The Guardian - May 2015: "In 2012, as the Russian government announced the formation of a new “greater Moscow”, Marat Khusnullin, the deputy mayor, headed up an international competition that invited plans for the newly expanded city region. There is talk of a grand urban vision: new jobs, homes, infrastructure and city-wide improvements. In the meantime, Moscow is already transforming. From plans for Zaryadye Park – Moscow’s first new park in 50 years – to burgeoning creative industries, rapid gentrification and a food revolution, the fabric of the city is being reworked. Plans involve pedestrianised embankments along a transformed riverfront, high-speed water transport and brand-new cycling infrastructure. But how much has life really changed for Moscow’s residents? Has the transformation been for the benefit of everyone or just a select few? And what of the future of this new Moscow?"
The day after
Note from "Time second-hand" by Svetlana Aleksievich" : "Mio figlio...mia madre...io...viviamo in paesi diversi, anche se si chiamano tutti Russia. Il nostro legame ha qualcosa di assurdo. Ci sentiamo tutti traditi".
Parks and Parade...
I found this interesting series of article about parks in Moscow. There is an interesting sentence in the introduction that may be worth to explore with pictures:
"Parks in Moscow reflect the influence of historic ideas on urban landscapes. There are elements of feudalism, socialism, and capitalism. There is monarchy, anarchy, religion, modernism, and post-modernism."
In the mean time, yesterday I wanted to see it from the "citizen" perspective and not from the VIP tribune on the Red Square. I wanted to have a picture from Sofiyaskaya nabereshnaya, the river side in front of the Kremlin, but, unfortunately, the street was closed for "security" reason. This is the best I got:
"In the Russian East"
IMPERIUM, Atlas and Chronology.
“Russia opened its twentieth-century history with the Revolution of 1905 and is closing it with the revolution that resulted in the breakup of the USSR in 1991 […] History in this country is an active volcano, continually churning, and there is no sign of its wanting to calm down, to be dormant.”
Imperium, Ryszard Kapuscinski
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