Translated material
What should Russia sit on?
Nikita Alekseev
If modular furniture turns out to be popular in Russia, it will mean that we are finally going to live in a normal country
If modular furniture turns out to be popular in Russia, it will mean that we are finally going to live in a normal country
(Photo: Pavel Gorshkov )
Let's remember what we sat and lay on, what we ate, and where we kept our things and books ten years ago. If we do not discuss very rare cases - for example, collectors of antiques or the very, very few citizens of the USSR who tried to organize their life according to the models of the then advanced Western design - there were, in fact, three options. The first is apartments filled with inherited furniture. Such apartments were mostly crowded with wardrobes, chests of drawers, tables and sofas from the Stalin era. Heavy, solid and, as a rule, quite ugly. The second option is more or less publicly available furniture from the era of Brezhnev and his ephemeral successors. Lacquered walls, sofa beds made of chipboard, soft corners and other components of the home of a Soviet resident with an average income, standardized to the point of absolute indistinguishability. The habitat of such a representative of the Soviet “middle class” - an engineer, teacher, doctor, menes - was the setting for the film "The Irony of Fate", and one could confuse one's apartment with someone else's without necessarily being drunk. No, of course, there was still some difference. Products from Soviet furniture factories were valued less than foreign ones (that is, those made in the “countries of people's democracy”), and Romanian walls and bookshelves were preferable to Czechoslovak ones. But these differences were generally insignificant. And finally - the apartments of the nomenklatura. The homes of party or military bosses, of course, differed from those inhabited by representatives of the scientific or creative elite. And the furniture in the apartment of the provincial first secretary of the district committee, naturally, was somewhat different than in the Moscow apartment of a member of the CPSU Central Committee. However, there was no fundamental difference between the “nomenklatura” wall and the wall in the engineer’s living room. It’s just that the first one was made not by the hands of a Romanian craftsman, but by an Italian or Austrian manufacturer, and not from chipboard covered with cheap veneer, but from solid wood. In addition, the criteria for prestige that emerged in the USSR were different from those in the West. For example, we had almost no leather upholstered furniture - a necessary element of an expensive Western interior. Armchairs and sofas were inevitably upholstered in synthetic velor or bouclé fabric.
And then everything changed overnight. Here we will not go into particulars and talk about apartments and mansions furnished with antiques, or about interiors created by fashionable modern designers. There are only a few of them. The social revolution that took place in the country led to the fact that in the wake of sudden enrichment, when money was often made “out of thin air,” many of those who were completely unprepared for this found themselves at the top of purchasing power. Their idea of luxury and comfort was brought up by their impressions of American soaps like Santa Barbara or overnight stays in standard expensive hotels like the Hilton. Demand created supply.
European illiquid
A strange feature of Moscow and other big cities in our country is the abundance of furniture “showrooms” and shops. These "salons" are filled with incredible kitsch products at exorbitant prices and are populated by bored salespeople and managers; Buyers are rarely seen in them. The strangest thing is that new stores of this type continued to open even after the August 1998 crisis, which ruined many potential customers.
One can, of course, argue that these retail outlets are simply showcases for some completely different activity, and it is possible that in some cases this is true. But there is another explanation, heard from a French furniture dealer who worked in Russia. The fact is that most of these sprawling armchairs, immense beds and culturally insane chests of drawers were made in Europe back in the 80s, or even in the 70s, in accordance with the tastes of the then petty bourgeoisie. In addition, what is often offered for sale in Russia was intended not for private apartments, but for hotels - in the early 80s, due to the rise of the tourism industry, the hotel business experienced an unprecedented boom. The second half of the decade saw an economic downturn. When the economy began to improve, all these products became obsolete, but continued to be stored in warehouses. Post-perestroika Russia turned out to be a real Eldorado for Western furniture makers. The mentioned French merchant traveled around his homeland and bought illiquid goods from owners who were happy to get rid of them at any price. Then he brought it to us. And, even having paid all the transport and customs expenses, spent money on renting a warehouse and retail space, and apparently given a bribe or tribute to anyone for the “roof,” he did not lose money.
However, now this kind of business is becoming less and less profitable - the era of fast money is over. And if the price of these furniture monsters does not decrease, this apparently means that the sale of one set out of ten imported covers the costs. However, if another redistribution of property does not occur, Russian furniture makers specializing in European illiquid goods will have to repeat the path of their Western colleagues and try to “sell” it to someone else. But who?
If the situation in the country remains more or less stable, this product with its style and cost simply will not find buyers. Those who liked this furniture have already purchased it. New clients of the same aesthetic orientation and with the same purchasing power cannot be expected. And about very rich people it has already been said. They will be interested in antique furniture or order interiors from advanced professionals.
Do it yourself
No modern society can exist and function normally without a backbone in the form of the middle class. We have constant discussions about the existence of the domestic middle class; it is often considered completely virtual, but it is still more alive than dead. One should not idealize the aesthetic level of its representatives, but they still have a fairly broad horizon: they are not particularly inclined to measure their furniture by some special “Russian yardstick” and more or less have an idea of what is now comme il faut and what is not.
It is also important in what spaces they will place the purchased items. Due to their financial capabilities, they cannot buy two-hundred-meter apartments in newly built mansions with turrets. For the foreseeable future, they will live in apartments that are small rather than enormous. Accordingly, they will have to take care of functionality and compactness, especially since the spaciousness and airiness of a modern home (even if it is really small) is already recognized by the majority as an indispensable requirement.
The famous “IKEA style” was not artificially imposed on consumers by Swedish designers. It developed as a result of social processes taking place in Western countries in the 60s and 70s, just when the role of the middle class in society was increasing and it itself was becoming more pluralistic. The developments of constructivist designers from the famous German Bauhaus school of the 20s and 30s came in handy here. 30 years later they turned out to be very appropriate. Modular furniture, consisting of individual components, allows you to ergonomically arrange a space in accordance with the various requirements of the people living in it. It is affordable. It can be updated and expanded. It is made from environmentally friendly materials. It is neutral, that is, it allows you to decorate the interior in a variety of ways. Almost any elements are appropriate. And a randomly found card table from the 19th century, and my grandmother’s Viennese chair, and an ultra-modern computer, and a rug with deer, and - if someone pleases - a bulky “Slavic wardrobe”. Without having any distinct features of its own, it allows the owner to express himself in the most extravagant way. Or be the ultimate conformist.
The forecast for the success of modular furniture in Russia may seem overly optimistic. She often scares away precisely because of her invisibility. For many, prestige and comfort are still determined by flashiness, the number of polished surfaces and an abundance of details. Yes, it’s hard to imagine modular furniture in the home of a crazed Russian pop star; it’s unlikely to be tolerated by a Komsomol functionary who has retrained as a banker. But this is not about them.
Some of the manufacturing companies of this type of furniture are trying to enter the Russian market, among them the Swedish IKEA, the French Habitat (it also belongs to IKEA), which built a plant in the city of Balakovo in the Saratov region, but slowed down its activities due to the August crisis, the relatively cheap French Castorama we have not yet presented. This is important not only in the interior sense. If modular furniture turns out to be popular in Russia, it will mean that we are finally getting ready to live in a normal country.
Standardized to the point of complete indistinguishability, the homes of the average Soviet resident of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s were very reminiscent of the scenery for the film “The Irony of Fate”: it was not only possible to confuse your apartment with someone else’s if you were drunk. (Photo: Pavel Gorshkov )