The crash of Nelson island

The St. Petersburg courtyard is not a gift. It is not only a narrow, dark and high, but also necessarily shook, plaster-clips, wires-clusters, crumpled drain pipes, knocked down steps-in general, a place for an amateur stalker, and if the gate is not locked, then why not a citizen that is nonsense on his feet and not to cope with the need. Which happened regularly in the courtyard on Polozova Street, 8 - until Nelson settled in the basement. Nelson looks like a pirate - long blue curls, an eagle nose, a lazy gait, but with his appearance the yard was transformed.

You’ll come in - a motorcyclist flies out of the wall, the bicycles are hovering in the air, a huge bear sits in the chair, a telephone with birds, propellers, toys in windows are added on the hemp, grow like mushrooms, and most importantly, every centimeter of the gloomy space has blossomed, even drainage pipes and bricks were covered ornament. But the main feature is in the center of the courtyard: Nelson not just painted the two old “Lada” gutted “Lada”, but turned into witty installations - and their wings are cut through, and intricate turrets on their heads rise, and all sorts of things inside are stripped. One inscription is worth it: “Lada Cargo 17”. There are generally enough inscriptions here - mostly philosophical: “Who understood life is in no hurry”, “Life is not equal, but fair.” On the asphalt there is a map, pink spots of the “islands”: “Vaska”, “Goa”, “Malta”, “Valaam”, “Sakhalin”, “Canar”. Yes, and the courtyard itself turned into an island - Nelson Island, which fell into all informal guides in St. Petersburg.

Nelson, the artist and bard, does not hide that he suffered a certain domestic collapse in life - so he lives here in the basement under the sign “Song Temple”, in the company with Voronaya Vasilisa. Locals adore him. Still: his fantasy was transformed not only by the courtyard, but also by adolescents that were mistaken in it, who used to break everything that came to hand, and now-no, not a single toy from the installations disappeared, not a single detail in the “freights” is broken-children of all ages come here and flood for hours, climbing their hands, touching the deer, looking at the deer, looking at the reindeer horns and sneakers sticking out of the walls.

Is it possible to compare this magical country with official playgrounds on one face. Adults come to Nelson to sit, chat, bring food, take care of him and are proud-because happiness fell. One of the local inscriptions is the “positive virus”, and, apparently, most of this virus become infected - but not all. Someone decided that an unlawed riot of colors with anyone was a mess-and hit.

They came. They said to remove. The locals were indignant - we will not give it. On November 8, the meeting was held - the majority voted to preserve the courtyard, there were only two against. The district administration promised that the final decision would be made on December 10, but deceived: on November 28, the housing of the housing of the housing and control and demolished half the Nelson installations, including the vehicles adored by children. Yes, this iron scrap that stood here is illegal - but is it legally the same scrap stands on the local streets for long winter months, occupying precious parking spaces, spreading snow and preventing snow from the roadway? Something I did not see around these dirty snowdrifts of preoccupied people in yellow vests that would remove what really interferes with people and spoils their mood. But it was worth turning these collapses into objects of joy and beauty-and they immediately began to interfere with someone, it immediately turned out that the HCS could not tolerate them in the yard, where they never interfered with anyone at all. Shortly before the disaster, the inhabitants of the surrounding houses were just discussing - and it would be nice to sometimes hold concerts and read the readings of poems - and now ... they didn’t save.

When I asked Nelson that he was forced to put so much work in this courtyard, he answered with words that I remember for a long time: “We forget that life is given to us as a valuable gift and all the time we complain about something, but in fact everything is in our hands, we just need to learn how to arrange for yourself the joys that are not dependent on the authorities.” He arranged - and everyone around also learned to rejoice. It is difficult to get rid of the thought that it was this, and not the lawless remains of the cars so strained local officials who ordered everything to demolish. How is it-someone in a single yard decided to have fun not according to their pointer-and most importantly, nothing to saw off from this homemade cake. After all, the catastrophe of the island of Nelson is not the only one in the city at all: people in yellow vests with the inscription “ZhKS” methodically destroy either an unusual flowerbed cherished by pensioners for many years, then a cheerful kindergarten diluted in front of a boring panel with an elegant scarecrow in the middle, then an unusual palisad, which brings dull walls - in short, all living and non -standard, all that makes everything that makes everything that makes us Close the eyebrows of the passerby and stretch his lips in a smile. And they are unlikely to clean the space themselves - this is the dead caste of officials, like an army of zombies, reacts to all living things with an unmistakable scum and immediately gives the command to destroy.

This army has voluntary assistants infected with the same flowering virus, “vigilant citizens” - and it doesn’t matter who they write denunciations to, a blogger who said the wrong word, or on a grandmother who put the wrong flower near the house. A distinctive feature of this gray army - it lies all the time: vigilant citizens lie that their denunciations are in the name of the good of others, officials lie that they do not add nights, listening to the opinion of the estated population. In fact, they catch the signals of only vigilant citizens, and all other citizens are deeply despised and afraid, no matter how they wake up and do something with their own hands. Sometimes this has the most banal explanation: someone will make a cheerful dad a playground from bizarre stumps and coils from the cable, everyone is delighted, the children run away from the entire microdistrict-but it will be demolished for once, because how then will the friendly administration of the LLC, sculpting its boring slides and rocks in all yards? But most often, even the money has nothing to do with it, the reaction goes on the reflex level: letting people do something out of administrative patterns-this means sharing power: today they will equip their courtyard, and tomorrow they will come and poke the administration with their nose into uncleaned snow, and then, good and municipal elections will move. No, even if it is better to stomp in the cunning courtyards and do not encroach on creative impulses.

On the very day when Nelson’s courtyard was destroyed, on the same Petrograd side in the arch on Kamennoostrovsky, 6 appeared the first digital frescoes in the city agreed with residents with the authorities. And this is fine, but something tells me-some vigilant citizen probably is already scribbling a denunciation that the coordination was issued incorrect, so there is no confidence that the undertaking will take root. Our parliamentarians were banned by the quests so beloved by schoolchildren, and nothing.

I am calm for Nelson: Nelson is on the side of life, of course, he will be loaded, but whispers with his Roof Vasilisa, will shake off and make something more cool-so again the tourists will lead him to him. But for us it is sad - the collapse of each island of joy and freedom is our defeat, connected by one thread and with pits on the roads, and with the closure of rural hospitals and libraries, and with Shies, and with the factory of criminal cases on extremist articles, and with grandfathers in the army: all the troubles are the same contempt for people and hatred of freedom.

Sofya Rogacheva - journalist

The "Opinion" expressed in the heading of the point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial office