Sun city, City-Son

The European, for the first time visiting Minsk, the city cannot but fecel with its strange, but absolutely irresistible charm. First of all, a tourist is amazed at the aesthetics of the imperial city - a very rare phenomenon for Europe. Wide streets and avenues, many palaces with somewhat ridiculous, but abundant decorations and numerous vast parks in the city center - a real luxury for European cities; Only the richest and aristocratic of them can afford something similar. However, Minsk in its monumental forms does not look absolutely cold, hostile and suppressed thanks to the raid of provincial sentimentalism. It is difficult to find anything less familiar to European architecture than a sentimental imperial style. The space of the imperial city, which, by definition, should distance himself from the personality, unexpectedly split in Minsk, becomes a close and proportionate person. Just like in the Carroll Wonder of Wonders, the mighty architectural structures are cringing to the size of a puppet house, and then move back again, returning ivory proportions to themselves. The surrounding panorama is in continuous change. The majestic, luxuriously decorated arch leads you into a sloppy courtyard with tiny boxes instead of balconies as the only decoration on induced walls. Another two hundred meters - and the next monumental arch leads you out of this kingdom of squalor to the next vast square, where giant Corinthian columns lined up along the sidewalk, next to which passers -by seem to Liliputs. Rhythms, aesthetics, psychological moods are constantly changing, in the urban space there are a lot of irrational and illogical zones reminiscent of Kafka, Elias Kanetti or Harms and even make the characters of their books feel.

In Europe, there are only a few cities of the imperial style: Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Rome: and Minsk! However, Paris, Berlin and Vienna were once either imperial capitals or centers of powerful political, economic and cultural trends, while Minsk always turned out to be somehow away from these processes and was never the capital of the empire, at least a second-rate one. It took less than a century for a small provincial city, barely noticeable on the map of Europe, it turned into a two -million megalopolis that is enormous according to European standards, wearing luxurious, albeit a little strange clothes. This miraculous transformation owes a certain mystical "genius of place." It logically follows from mythologist, the sources of which are lost in the darkness of the centuries. "City of the dead heroes", "City of dead poets", "City of the deceased geniuses", "Mogila city" - each of us has heard all these definitions of Minsk repeatedly. You can even dismiss them as a poetic metaphor, if not their absolute truth. Indeed, Minsk is a dead city, or the city of the dead, but rather a city of dead cities. During its history, the next Minsk repeatedly arose and disappeared from the face of the earth. It could be the Orthodox, Catholic, Uniate or Greek-Catholic, Jewish, again the Orthodox city, then the Soviet, Sarmatian, Baroque, Imperial and, finally, the provincial center. It is this amazing chain of reincarnations that gives Minsk its originality. Each time, rebelled from dust, Minsk broke with the former tradition and was revived as a completely different city with new aesthetics, way of life, mythology and even ethnic and religious composition. Here, as if the nomads settled in waves, built their cities, and then went further, taking their cities with them and leaving behind only a landfill of cultural layers, energy concentrated somewhere in the depths, and the remains of their ancestors, scattered throughout the entire area of ​​the former city. This is typical not only for Minsk, but also for many other large and small Belarusian cities. They differ in the number and aesthetic value of their reincarnations. Some disappeared and no longer revived. Others were restored, but in such a way that it would not have happened better.

In a historical sense, death and revival create an algorithm for the entire territory, which in its current incarnation is called Belarus. Fortunately or unfortunately (this will become clear only after a few centuries), it is located on the border of two great civilizations, not completely entering the sphere of influence of any of them. This will entail its inevitable death, when the waves from the east and from the West again clash with each other, and the revival when peacetime requires ports and quiet harbors. Perhaps that is why reincarnation or revival is the key to understanding Belarusian history and a magical symbol of the fate of Belarus.

Every normal European city is developing, adding a new one to a long -existing one. Thus, it evolves, and various cultural layers constantly intersect with each other. Even if new peoples come to the place of the old peoples, they assign themselves the heritage of former inhabitants, complementing it with something of their own. As for Minsk, whose written history began quite significantly with the massacre on the banks of the Neman, it turned into the "city of dead cities", "permitted civilizations", "dead heroes" and the relevant peoples. But it was precisely because of this that he became the perfect place for the perfect city of communist utopia. It was predetermined by the mystical fate of Minsk that only here the Sun city from the Soviet dream could arise. The construction of such a city was impossible either in Moscow - the heart of the empire, nor in Leningrad, or in any other city. Take, for example, Moscow. Generations of Soviet architects tried to turn it into a salt city, but only a colossal eclectic conglomerate was obtained. The Sun city could only become a reality in Minsk, as it needs a huge cemetery of dead cities, where the mourning sun will illuminate the dreams of the dead.

Each state has its own symbols - the coat of arms, anthem and flag. In the same way, every social utopia has its own ideal city as a symbol. Any utopia is an attempt to make everyone happy. Her ideal city should embody the aesthetics of happiness in itself, as the founders of utopia imagined it. In the state of workers and peasants, the aesthetics of happiness was associated with what the oppressed classes were deprived of. Their idea of ​​a wonderful life and well -being suggested that a person of a communist future instead of a slum would live in magnificent palaces with beautiful parks, fountains and ideal statues that embody the beauty of a harmonious person of a communist future. These palaces will be connected with each other with wide streets along which green trees and exotic flowers will grow. In the key points of the ideal city, grandiose squares will appear, where happy citizens will gather for exciting holidays and parades. It was such an idea of ​​a salt city that was embodied during the post-war restoration of Minsk.

The main highway of the city was Stalin -Lenin Avenue (now Skorina). This is one of the longest streets - at different times it had in length from 12 to 18 kilometers. Giant Squares are strung on this axis of the cities: Lenin Square (now independence), Stalin Square (now Oktyabrskaya), Victory Square, Yakub Kolas Square, Kalinin Square. Along the avenue, the famous Minsk palaces were lined up with endless rows, designed by the best Soviet architects of that time.

These unique buildings, which can be called "folk palaces", in essence, are not palaces. They borrowed their luxurious external decor from the classic palaces, but inside they remained ordinary apartment buildings. In the backyard of each of these palaces, as a rule, a small square with statues is broken, sometimes with fountains and even with open pops. In a sense, the style of the Minsk palaces can be called the "Stalinist Empire" - in fact, it is a decadence, which differs from the laconic classical Empire with the illegible use of the architectural signs of the past. The builders of the great utopia had no doubt that their aesthetics of happiness would include all the greatest achievements of the pre -communist culture. It is not surprising that the semantics of the Stalinist Empire covers the entire gamut of classical architecture, turning to ancient Greek, Roman and even Egyptian patterns along with the motives of Baroque and Renaissance.

"Folk Palaces" turn out to be just symbols of palaces. This is precisely their uniqueness. These buildings really create the illusion of palaces, in which abundant external jewelry is artificially stuck on constructivist walls. And such a decadent luxury, as if drawn on one side of the sheet, disappears when you turn the page. The endless rows of flat palaces, which are essentially nothing more than a decoration for some kind of grandiose production, are a bewitching surreal spectacle. But, barely stepping aside, you find yourself in a completely different reality. Corinthian and ionic warrants, impressive cornices and monumental arches evaporate in the blink of an eye. There are gray, unicitucheated walls, miserable balconies with linen hung on them and monotonous black windows of the barracks. And this is the naked truth. There are personalities who are more similar to Brueghel’s characters than the happy inhabitants of the city of the Sun, who are tired of their small dramas crazy. In these rear squares, the voice of the drama sounds louder than on the other side of the wall, where it is muffled by the march of Roman columns, Egyptian obelisks, Greek urns and vases and some stone deities of communist mythology, which proclaimed universal happiness. Only a few palaces do not fit into the definition of “flat palaces” - this is the Palace of the Post, the Palace of the Government, the KGB Palace, the Palace of the National Bank, the Palace of Trade Unions, the Palace of the Central Committee of the Party, the Palace of the Republic, the Palace of the Circus, the Palace of the Academy of Sciences and, perhaps, one or two of others. In their eclecticism, the Minsk palaces sometimes take such a surreal and hyperironic form that the fathers of postmodernism would envy them. Take, for example, the Palace of Television on the Communist Street. The impressive colonnade in the ancient Egyptian style is sculpting to the banal constructivist facade, from which a renaissance pediment grows quite indecisively, as if ashamed of something. Or look at the Belbusinessbank building on Marx Street, at first glance, barely worthy attention. Its constructivist facade is decorated with several tiers of thin and graceful Corinthian columns, which could least be expected here. And in conclusion, this sample of absolutely illogical architecture is equipped with stone flowers wrapping the front door in some baroque rhythm.

The farther from the main avenue, the more often the examples of irrational and illogical architecture come across. It seems that the artist who created this masterpiece worked exclusively on the central part of the composition, leaving the rest only in sketches with a few random expressionist strokes who were born unconsciously. Scattered fragments come to the place of flat, but still holistic decoration. The "wall -like" palaces give way, let's say, "window -like" palaces. These buildings, no longer creating the illusion of palaces, are just equipped with several signs symbolizing the palace. Such signs can serve as somewhat decorated windows, a pediment with columns, often talked to a neoputable wall and completely inappropriate. By the way, such labels can be seen on the back of the "wall -like" palaces.

All this gives the impression of a grand scenery for some fantastic production. Reality is replaced by a scene. The Sun city is actually a flat imitation, where a plywood circle, painted in bright yellow color, acts in the role of the Sun. The statues of ideal people who are reproaching in the intervals between the palaces, including athletes, copies of Greek sculptures, girls with oars, pioneers with bears, deer and other animals symbolizing reunion with nature in a communist paradise, are just gypsum models, and this completely apologizes the real imperfect people who desecrate them, beat them up and hands, beat them with their noses and hands, they beat them. Grind them and write curses on them.

No utopia can turn into reality. So the project for the construction of the Sun city of communist happiness in practice led to the creation of a city-sna, a flat decoration for a pastoral play in the absurd style. But maybe the authors of the play strove for this. In the end, the true Sun city was to be built east, in Moscow, as in the capital of the empire. Minsk served only her front gates. The audience, for which this luxurious scene was created, could not but see a fake - after all, tourists who fell into the Empire through this monumental triumphant arch, and not people living in beautiful "wall -like" or "window -like" palaces, were a real audience. It was assumed that a tourist, bypassing the imperial triumphal arch, i.e. The city of one street, along which two walls of palaces stretched for kilometers, will fall to his knees at the sight of such imperial greatness. Paradoxically, Minsk as a triumphal arch became a more impressive aesthetic symbol of the empire than its own capital. Moscow failed to overcome the resistance of its mentality and become the greatest altar of the Soviet empire. Minsk as a city -soldier, which grew up among Belarusian forests and swamps - this is the practical result of the project to create the perfect city of great communist utopia. The fact that the absurd aesthetics and poetics were inherent in this project, which turned Minsk into an imitation of a salt city, in no case deprives him of uniqueness. The current reincarnation of Minsk in a sense completes a certain mythological and poetic discourse. The ghost of the city now lives in a body, which, despite its imaginary materiality, also turns out to be a ghost, the shadow of the empire, the city of artificial sun and luxurious theatrical scenery. All these magnificent squares and wide streets, built up with flat palaces, are just a huge scene for some bizarre play. This universal play - neither Belarusian nor Russian, nor Polish, nor German - talks about dreams and the impossibility of their embodiment, about the city of happiness and the inability to get there. This is the myth of Sisyphus and the myth of Ikar, the myth of the Sun, which gives life to all creatures and symbolizes death. Minsk with its long ten -year history casts doubt on other values. Which is better: the uniqueness or heat of cultural layers? Which option is preferable: once to be born and live the normal life of a typical European city, becoming cozy and friendly to its inhabitants, or to revive and die again and again, turning into a bizarre architectural conglomerate that does not have their own? What is more valuable: to be normal or to wear a seal of a genius, even the most pathological? The equanimity of the philistine mediocrity or the desire to create a great romantic utopia, which ultimately takes the form of an absurd shadow of the empire named Gorod-Solnza, City-Son?

But sleep is not death yet ...

Translation by Nikolai Edelman