Translated material
"Angelic", "Fucking" and "Abbey"
How do Moscow communards live?
In large Russian cities, communes are multiplying - self-organized spaces that exist according to their own internal rules. No, these are not dirty anarcho-squats, but large huts in the center with public and private areas, cinema halls, and events. They are emphatically non-politicized so as not to cause trash, but this does not interfere with freedom of expression. Nikolai Bauman from the Moscow commune “Strelka. GENESIS" told No Future what his space is about, why they unfollow people and how they share the "Fucking" room.
We appeared a little over a year ago and initially we were planned as an event commune. The very first Strelka team agreed with the landlord of this premises on the condition that we would pay a percentage of the events. As a result, we organize events not commercially, we do not pay a percentage. But the idea of a creative space where people can gather others, tell them something, was built into the space itself from the very beginning.
We have a four-room apartment in an elite residential complex , and one of the rooms is specifically for parties and events. This is a huge hall where we removed part of the floor, laid it with artificial turf, and painted all the walls. This is the main place where everything happens. Many places are imbued with the same spirit. Next to the hall there is a space for film screenings, with a white wall and flags. There is a place with a shared computer. It's weak and you can't play Dota on it, but it's good for urgent matters.
I am not from the first Strelka team, I am one of the young communards who have come again and are showing a lot of initiative. The idea grew out of the Moscow communard movement. There were communes in Moscow before us, the most famous one being “Good Morning” in the tower on Komsomolskaya. It gave birth to a huge number of modern-type communes. After “Good Morning,” a new understanding of the word “commune” appeared - this is a special cohabitation in the format of special connections and the organization of social life, a certain culture of communication, a lifestyle.
Then the “Zemlyanka” commune appeared, which transformed into “FASAD” - a community of communes . To join “FASAD”, the commune had to have rules: anti-surfactants (psychoactive substances), event-oriented, division into communards and scribes, a rule about three free days for hitchhikers. Strelka appeared during FASAD. People who wanted to rent housing together adopted these principles. "FASAD" recently broke up, but we continue to cooperate. After the collapse, Strelka became denser, more friendly inside, we added some kind of leftist symbolism, now there are no restrictions.
We gradually expanded this horizon of creativity from simple events to everyday life. In the commune it just so happened that each room got its own name. In addition to the common room, there is a “World of Ideas” room, it is very beautiful and is often photographed. There is an “Angel” room, a huge angel is painted on it, and inside it is heavily covered with texts, it oozes from all the walls. There is a room called "Abbey". Being in such a space, where there are drawings, books, posters everywhere, really encourages new people who come to live here and engage in creativity.
Spaces are controlled by the groups that live in them . For example, I live in Angelskaya. Stas, our financier, lives with me in the room, Sergei and Ves, who sleeps on the top tier. The four of us decide for ourselves who will clean the room, we can let people in or not. In “Angelskaya” we have a second balcony, not shared by smokers, but ours. The four of us chipped in, bought polyurethane foam and repaired the glass that was falling out of the frame. Now it’s less like glass and more like a cloud with gaps. But thanks to close connections, it’s difficult to isolate yourself in your room; for example, I helped fix Plato’s bed in the “World of Ideas” because I know how to.
For couples, we have a special solution - a pantry . This is a room two by two meters, the entire floor of which has one mattress with linen. We specially installed ventilation there. Responsibility for the cleanliness of the storage room is assigned on a duty basis. Its main feature is that it can be securely closed from the inside. This room is designed specifically for couples who want privacy for the whole night. That’s what we say: “Guys, if you want privacy, go over there.” A special room only for the intimate process. It is very often empty, so there is no queue, people can just come. Now two couples live in the commune, one in the “World of Ideas”, the other in the “Abbey”. They sometimes occupy this fucking place, and if they don’t want to, they can stay in their rooms, where they have shared beds or pushed together mattresses - this is decided within the room.
From household rituals, we have common products . If people have absolutely nothing to eat, they will always find something in the public refrigerator: eggs, milk. I have never been in a situation where I really had nothing to eat. Another ritual is a community-wide meeting, weekly on Sunday evening. We discuss organizational problems, like fixing a handle or building a ventilation system. There is a "candle". It is supposed to take place on Tuesdays, but we are rescheduling it. This is when everyone gathers in a circle, passes a candle and takes turns expressing their emotions associated with living in a commune. This is a way to monitor the state of the communards so that everyone speaks out, especially important for introverts.
Wednesday is a day without madness, and Thursday is a day of madness . On crazy day, people can do scary crazy things, and we can't stop them. For example, the tallest communard put on stilts and jumped throughout the commune. On crazy days, they often draw on the walls and write poems impulsively. These are creative impulses. Now I'm sitting next to the sign "Which nipple will you choose?" – this was written on the day of the madness, and we will not paint it over, because it was fun. We paint over some of the inscriptions to match the drawings made by kids who know how to draw. This has a therapeutic effect. People are much calmer after a day of crazy, they let off steam. Better to explode on this day than on any other.
Most often, social sanctions are applied , such as placing a person on probation. If he does something out of bounds in two weeks, he can be transferred to a scribe or kicked out. This is called "unfollowing". Over the few months that I have been living here, there have been several unsubscribes. For example, Peter was dismissed because of harassment towards the clerk. You are given three days to unsubscribe to pack your things, wash your clothes and leave. There are people who leave with a scandal, and there are those who are calm. Peter packed his things the next day.
There was a question about unsubscribing Arseny, one of the most active communards , who wrote half of the posts in the channel. He had mental problems, he fell into depressive and manic phases, whined, and could run and throw a pillow. At the meeting, we decided not to write him off, but to chip in for him to see a psychiatrist. He went, he was diagnosed, he learned to live with his problem and is still here.
Personally, it is very difficult for me to live without a large number of ideological comrades who share my hobbies, under one roof. This way of life, when you can ask a neighbor for salt, this good neighborliness - it helps a lot. In addition, it is a self-organizing community. When you are alone, you have a landlord who demands everything from you. But here we are a large group, and although there is a landlord, his opinion is felt much less. This turns personal everyday life into a countercultural movement. After university or events, you come to the commune and find yourself in your community, continuing your social life.
We have the “Strelka Friends Club” - a group of people together with communes who love space, but live in their own apartments. They help organize large events. More than twenty people gathered and played a homemade “Field of Miracles”. We collaborate with a club that teaches guitar, we have lessons, so there are a bunch of guitars in cases in the corner. Kommunarka Slavyana, she is a director, organizes film screenings.
Once there was a concert for 70 people . Then there were complaints from neighbors, but somehow the relationship was settled. Of course, there are problems with neighbors. The residential complex is elite, rich families live, they want silence. We try not to make noise, especially in the outer rooms. One of the communal workers worked in the same house and got to know all the neighbors, this helped. We haven't been evicted yet; we've learned to live together.
To become a communard, you need to pass social security . The man sits down in the center of the room, and we all ask him questions. We don’t hire alcoholics or those who undermine the vibe. We don’t take selfish individualists who don’t accept social rules. There are controversial guys, we look after them in the format of a sign-up, and then we make a decision.
The commune does not have a common global goal . There are ideological people who think of the commune as the basis of a new world, but they are a minority. The immediate goals are to fix the pen, recruit more communards, because when there are a lot of scribes, this is not very good.
There are few fears that the security forces will come to us . In posts about ourselves, we emphasize that we are an apolitical commune and do not touch politics in any way. It is known that “FASAD” was monitored by law enforcement agencies. There was a commune called “Raft”, they broke in, tied up people, checked them, then it closed. But more often than not, our problems with the cops are domestic ones: some communards are freegans or steal food from stores, and that’s what we encounter in such cases.
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