What is it to be Russian now?
This question has been in my head since February 22, 2022. The answers are painful. Despite all the great cultural legacy, however, all my knowledge of Russian history reveals:
Violent and abusive internal and foreign policy during the last hundred years.
Different types of propaganda.
Dramatic stories of my ancestors, who passed WWI, October revolution, WWII, Stalin's GULAG labor camps.
My personal experience of living in the past decade of the USSR and then the Russian Federation.
The invasion of the Russian army into Ukraine divided my life into two parts. My new life is full of questions such as: What did I do wrong? What's wrong with the people of my country who support or/ and participate in this war? What was the point of no return for my country? And, of course, the title question. We decided to leave Moscow at the beginning of March 2022: me, my husband, two kids, and a dog. Since then, we have lived in Armenia, UAE, and, finally, the USA.
Once, our neighbor, who is from Hungary, after we had a detailed discussion about the current situation between Russia and Ukraine, asked me how I feel to be Russian now. He added that the answer could be an artwork. That was a trigger for me. I decided to figure out what my culture code is. The logic was to get clear about what I was made of. This could help me take the next steps in my new life.
Fortunately, I took a sculpture class during the winter term at DeAnza College. I could work in the Lab using different machines and tools. I started with the sketch. Indeed, not all of the elements became a part of the final sculpture. I kept only the most significant ones.
The metal frame was a skeleton holding all the parts together: concrete ruins, a deformed wooden cube, a stone, a book, and metal panels. At the same time, the frame meant a cage, a prison, a lack of freedom, and fear gripping the mind and body.
Concrete ruins are a metaphor for the country I was born in, lived in, loved, and which doesn't exist anymore. Wooden cube reminds me of our family summer house in the Moscow suburb. My grandfather and father built it by themselves. My father used a lot of wood to decorate walls and ceilings. That summer house used to be a place of force for me. The weight of the stone above slightly deforms the cube. The stone with the infinity loop sign means the weight of the memories. Even the good memories are painful and challenging as most of them are linked with my close ones; I don't know when I will meet them again.
The stone was the most difficult part of the sculpture. I needed to drill a hole through it. My first trial failed. I moved by 2-3 millimeters during an hour. I gave up and even made a substitute from silicone rubber. Then Alisa, the Lab's technical specialist, gave me precious advice on how to use a diamond bit. That worked, and after two hours of drilling, I held the stone with the proper hole in it. By the way, I still feel pain in my right hand after that long drilling process.
Books were a significant part of my life. I left my library of art, historian and non-fiction books in Moscow. I asked myself, which book defines me as Russian? My first option was "Crime and Punishment" by F. Dostoyevsky. This book reflects the contradiction and impulsive Russian character, terrible spontaneous actions, and extremely painful self-reflection after them. I even bought this book from E-bay. However, when I looked at it close to the sculpture, I clearly realized that there is another book that defines Russians today. This book can explain why Russians lack freedom and are full of fears, which make them so easy to manipulate. The book is "GULAG" by A. Solzhenitsyn.
It is about the system of labor camps founded by Stalin in the 1930s. They existed till the end of the 1950s, and actually, they exist now just under the other official name and with some formal changes. This system was a tool to fight dissents, those who asked too many questions and came to some conclusions different from the official point of view. My great-grandfather spent 11 years there. The ex-Soviet society is divided into two parts: the people who were GULAG prisoners and the people who were GULAG wardens. Each Russian family has an ancestor from one of the categories. GULAG is the reason for the collective fear that has been passed on to other generations. A metal wall with windows and a hole symbolizes the damage the Russian army has caused in many other countries. After I left Russia, I saw it so clear that the history of my country is a history of wars and military conflicts, imperial ambitions, and military retention of Soviet/ Russian influence in other countries. At the same time, I grew up under the propaganda slogan "USSR/ Russia is against war as a peaceful country."
The sculpture is heavy, but still I can hold and carry it. This is a metaphor of my own family and cultural heritage: it's heavy, but still you can move with it and try to change yourself for better. Even you can reconstruct yourself from the scratch.
This sculpture is a part of a self-reflecting series “Internal dialogue”.
