Gentle city, Gorky city

The Daily Journal continues a series of publications about how Russia has lived the last two weeks of the outgoing year outside the garden ring.

It is called both bitter and tender. Its Kremlin rises above the Volga, but his name is still lower. This is Nizhny Novgorod. Almost one and a half million people live here, among them I am. This is my place, because there is an opportunity to be yourself, or at least, space and opportunities for search.

City. Places

The lower big city, and therefore very different. The most important socio-political events take place, of course, in the center. At the walls of the Kremlin, and literally. In the Kremlin, according to the old tradition, the regional government and the administration are located - of course, all key decisions are made there. For example, there it was a decision to liquidate the unprofitable enterprise “Kino -Oblivideaning”, which included the Cinema Center “Record”, adored by the Nizhny Novgorod, a young creative elite. To abolish! - ordered the government, director of Pavel Miloslavsky - to dismiss! .. And transfer the “Record” to the Office of the Methodological Center for Folk Creativity. These orders did not surprise the cultural community, but outraged.

In the red walls of the Kremlin, activists gathered an unauthorized procession with the posters “Return to us '' Record ''!” Of course, they did not go far, but after once again they thought about the problems that are in the city, and created a public organization that should monitor a cultural life. True, it is not yet clear how all this will happen ...

At the walls of the Kremlin, on Minin Square, Nizhny Novgorod and December 10 gathered for a rally “For honest elections!”. I was not there, but, they say, everything was culturally, even despite the fact that about two thousand people came (and this is a lot for our city).

At the walls of the Kremlin, on the banks of the Volga, and the famous Chkalov ladder, and a monument to the pilot Chkalov, who makes his hands an ambiguous gesture. This, of course, is no more than a children's joke, but even serious forty -year -old writers laugh at it. As a child, I more loved to recalculate the steps on the stairs - I walked down them from top to bottom and bottom up, and never got tired. Now such a walk - 560 steps up - a small feat.

Contemporary art now lives within the walls of the Kremlin. The branch of the State Center for Contemporary Art (HCSI) is located right in the Arsenal building. So far, only one third of the premises have been restored, but Contemporary Music already sounds here, Contemporary Art lives, and all this is actively discussed. It is pleasant that children are involved in the process of creating the Nizhny Novgorod cultural space. Family developing and making mugs for the lower rarity. And the arsenal so far, unfortunately, is the only center of cultural communication. A cultural monopoly can, of course, adversely affect the development of society. Although I am comfortable in these walls. Sometimes I want to sit there until late, but after ten alcohol and contemporary art are forbidden to “release”. The Kremlin is closed at ten, but the director of the Volga branch of the GTSIA Anna Mountains will solve this problem. She knows how to manage with time and space. Not one, of course. One of the last exhibitions in the arsenal is “Communal Vanguard”. The reference project to two “social horodam”: the Yekaterinburg Uralmash and the Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant. Artist Vladislav Efimov and photographer Sergey Leontyev built a fantom city in the walls of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. The car factory for the first time became the hero of contemporary art. But he, a car factory, is one of the most beautiful areas of the city.

This is a city in the city. For the first time, having got to the Avtozavodsk streets, you are surprised that this is also the lower one. The car factory as another world, after confused streets and courtyards of the upper part, the slender avenues of this area seem to be some kind of unnatural. Five -story houses with huge windows, large courtyards and wide streets - it is spacious and comfortable here. Everything is arranged so that the Soviet worker is not distracted by minor household problems so that life is established and walks like a conveyor tape ... Today the streets are hung with a variegated taste of advertising, “girls” stand on the avenues, and “Gopota” smokes around the angle. It's hard to believe, but here you can find "boys" in sports pants and sharp -nosed boots. The car factory did not fulfill its mission as “social town”, but did not lose beauty and comfort.

It was here, on the outskirts, the metro first appeared. Of course, the Nizhny Novgorod metro is not only the stations of the Avtozavodsky district, you can get to the Leninsky and Moscow regions on this branch. And all. Of the eight, only three are equipped with an subway. In each car, a plan of the Nizhny Novgorod subway flaunts on the wall. The scheme is a phantom. There are so many unhealthy stations on it (those that have been planned a long time ago, but they didn’t proceed to them) that the trip to the subway seems to be a snatch at sleep. All stations can be rounded in an hour. And you will not have time to get enough sleep. And for ten years now "just soon!" A breakthrough should occur in the lower: the subway car will pass from the lower part to the upper, just ten minutes from the Moscow station right to Gorky Square! In the meantime, traffic jams-processes. It is far from Moscow - the scale is different, but in ours you can stand for hours. It’s difficult to get up in the morning from below. Narrow bridges cannot cope with a huge flow of machines, and repair on them is always, and always inappropriately. Today in the Nizhny three old renovated bridges and one new - the metromost. And in the evening and in the morning, still kilometer ribbons of machine headlights at the entrances to the bridges and at the entrances to the entrances. This, of course, is very beautiful and sets up in a romantic way, if at that time it is on foot nearby. Going along the road is already problematic. In our city, pedestrians and cyclists should look for a place somewhere on the sidelines, and it sometimes turns out to be very difficult, especially in winter. How many problems! And all these problems should solve people, but where are they?

City. Job

Friends often complain to me that there is no worthy job in Nizhny. Secretaries, waiters and sellers are needed everywhere. Just do not want linguists and translators to work in the service sector. Work should correspond to the level of their spiritual development. I am always lost when they ask me for advice. In my opinion, the bottom is a developing city, and therefore there are many areas of activity where young and energetic specialists are needed, the main thing is to understand what you want to do.

You can work with children. Children's development centers are constantly opening. There are not enough kindergartens, the lines in them are stretched for several years. Home kindergarten, for example, can be not only a work for the soul, but also bring a fairly decent income. You can combine. One of my friends in the morning work in the municipal kindergarten, and in the evening by a merchandiser. One job for the soul, the other for the body - after all, the body needs food, house and generally comfort.

You can create your own small business, unless, of course, the soul lies and is an entrepreneurial spirit. It is foolish to say that it is simple. There are many difficulties even at the level of collecting papers, but if there is a desire and a matter that is to your liking, why not try. One of my familiar has been trying to create a family business for several years: I started soap with handmade, then there was home chocolate. Now I am sure that the future is for natural milk. This year he will try again.

And again to culture. This is a field for real warriors, to fight for centimeters of cultural space and only a truly persistent person will be able to defend the interests of the indifferent community. Festivals, exhibitions, concerts, theatrical productions - Nizhny Novgorod still lacks spiritual food. There are many events, but interesting, bright, high -quality - units. We have a full house of the musical comicus “Leonardo” Kim Bratburg, and a person of twenty comes to the Contemporary Music concert. And, in general, of course, this is a normal ratio for the lower, but who said that it cannot be better?

City. People

People are not ready to perceive, are not ready to think, are not ready to speak out. There are many gray people in the city, with gray faces and bored eyes. And it seems that this is not only their problem. People do not know that it is possible otherwise, people have forgotten that there is life outside the road “House-work”. But it would be unfair to say: "Our people are completely uncultural." This is not true. Many are not yet ready to perceive contemporary art, but the halls of the Nizhny Novgorod Philharmonic are always complete, and the “Holy Epistle” was given the queues for the election exhibition of lithographs.

The main law of a market economy says: demand gives birth to a proposal. Demand for culture has already appeared, which means there will be a proposal. And two thousand people at a rally for honest elections say that the political situation is not indifferent to people, which means democracy is possible, however, so far it is hard to believe.

My city is both tender and bitter. It is different, because almost one and a half million people live in it. And he has where to grow.

Nizhny Novgorod

Author - graduate of the School of Cultural Journalism of the Pro Arte Foundation