Total insolation

The final lecture and showing the program “Cinema through the eyes of an engineer” will begin on August 27 at 17:00 in the main temple complex of communism - at VDNH, in the kingdom of the eternal summer and abundance. Before showing the Urbanist Sai-Fay Medvedkin, a lecture on how (and to what extent) this large project was carried out in reality will be held on the Stalinist reconstruction of Moscow. Registration for a lecture and show can be held here .

"New Moscow" (1938)

Director Alexander Medvedkin

In the distance from the capital, among swamps and mosquitoes, young engineers are building a power station. They also created a curiosity - “Living Model of Moscow”. Turn it on - and in the place of small houses and churches, huge monuments of communism appear, inspired by the genius of the leader of all peoples.

The designer Alyosha and his grandmother are taking the model to Moscow. In Moscow, Alyosha will meet the artist Fedya, a student of the Timiryazevo Academy Olya, Porosenkom Henry and a fateful Muscovite Zoya, who will love Alyosha, but will not want to leave for the Vyselki.

"New Moscow" repeated the fate of almost all Medvedkin masterpieces. She came out a small screen, very soon appeared on the shelf and remained unknown to the general public almost until the very end of the Soviet era. But after-fell into the number of the most popular Soviet ribbons of the 30s. Love in the West and frequent shows in Russia.

Since then, there has been quite a lot of the film since then, although the authors of notes about the “New Moscow” usually dwell on two self -evident topics. Firstly, on the example of the film, we can talk about the inhumanity of the Stalinist utopia, which looks especially dead and alien against the background of funny romantic adventures of the main characters. Explosions of old houses, violent expansion of streets, huge palaces, most of which were never built, incredible sizes of the statue and cyclopic columns ... The ideal city, the creation of which is observed by the characters of the picture, resembles a cross between the "capital of the world of Germany" of Speer, a fantasy on the theme of Piranzi and R'Lehuh. The agitation that heroes fall into when they recall that “the great Stalin put forward this plan of reconstruction”, also seems quite sudden and, at best, somewhat exaggerated.

Secondly, years later, in New Moscow, an involuntary prediction of the collapse of the system that she seemed to intend to sing is clearly read. During a public demonstration, the living model of Moscow will first fail, and the story before our eyes seems to be faded back. Under the laughter and screams of the public on the site of columns and triumphal arches, demolished Moscow churches appear, and instead of the Palace of Soviets from puffs of smoke, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior suddenly arises. No need to go to Kropotkinskaya to be surprised at the fidelity of this prediction, which was conceived as a funny joke. The fact that for the heroes of the film is a husk of history, which must be destroyed for the construction of a new and excellent future, for us is an occasion for endless bitterness, "Russia, which we have lost." And now, a procession is regularly performed around Pushkinskaya Square, whose participants want the restoration of the passionate monastery, and the participant in the Taurida camp discusses the plans for the construction of temples at the site of the 14th Corps demolished in the Kremlin.

Both that and the other in the film are. However, the Muscovite, living in 2017, can suddenly find in the comedy of Medvedkin and some completely sudden, very consonant with his sensations, a dimension. Moscow is a city of constant changes, the landscape in which changes every hour. This is a huge construction, since each government seeks to remake it to its taste.

VDNH

The All -Union Agricultural Exhibition (and this is how the VDNH was originally called) - a monument unique not only for our country, but also - I will not be afraid of this word - for the whole world. Officially, VSHV - and after it and VDNH - was created to demonstrate the advanced achievements of the Fatherland in the field of agriculture and industry to the population of the country. But we understand that VDNH is, first of all, a colossal ideological monument, something between the temple complex and a thematic park.

Passing through the giant arch of the main entrance, visitors to the exhibition fell into the country of miracles. Everything here was not the same as there - in real life. It was really better and more fun here; The smiling steeply and pink -like collective farmer and their men spoke eloquently about this eloquently. Instead of the cold, a communal apartment is an eternal summer, therefore the architecture is light and airy, as in a sanatorium. Instead of empty shelves in stores, the ubiquitous thick sheaves of wheat and weighty bunches of grapes, fat cows and pigs pigs.

And while the country, overcoming the hardships of everyday life, builds socialism, everything is already achieved and built here. On the canvas of Gerasimov, happy citizens of the Soviet country pose against the backdrop of the Palace of Soviets, which subjugated the Moscow landscape. And on the famous high relief of Wuchetich "to the Soviet people, the banner of the world, - Glory!" Behind the demonstrators, a new, transformed Moscow is revealed.

The film by Medvedkin will be shown in Optics, one of the VDNH pavilions now closed. Before the show is a lecture on the Stalinist reconstruction of Moscow, another grandiose project to restructure reality.