For those who had never been to the "Cities" before, much at the festival seemed like a wonder. As the name suggests, the main goal of the event is to create a city, but its participants never sought to hone their traditional urban planning skills. Rather, they wanted to create a “reverse city” - a truly comfortable, visually very bright and unambiguously optimistic living environment, which is so lacking in most real cities. And if in 2005 "Cities" began with individual pieces of land-art, then in Altai, high in the mountains, where not every experienced tourist dares to look, a real city with a population of 600 people was created in a few days. There it was possible to find residential buildings, public buildings and even infrastructural facilities, neighborhoods, as it should be in the city, were united by streets, and those, in turn, overlooked the central (Red) Square (in common parlance, the main clearing), where life did not calm down even late at night.
Each "City" had its own theme, but the theme of finding a balance between modern architecture and the environment, whether it be an old Russian city, an abandoned military enterprise, or untouched natural complexes, became common to all festivals. Having chosen Gorny Altai with its majestic nature almost untouched by man as the venue for the current “City”, the organizers did not rack their brains for a long time over the theme of summer 2009. Where, if not surrounded by high mountains, the purest Multinsky lakes and dense forests, to create an ecological settlement? However, even in these noble plans, nature has repeatedly tried to make adjustments. For example, it rained and thunderstorms almost constantly, the roads were washed out, and it took 15-20 hours to get to the festival site from Novosibirsk or Barnaul (instead of the usual 4). At some point, the participants believed that the weather in the mountains is always so unfavorable, but the indigenous Altaians said: the place where the Green City is located is considered sacred, and the spirits are angry with people for the noise of chainsaws and loud music. Only in the last four days, nature has settled down to the architects, and under the rays of the hot Altai sun, they were able to complete their objects by the official closing of the festival - on August 8.
The situation with building materials is no less difficult. According to the conditions of the festival, all objects of the "Green City" must be built from natural, "handy" materials - logs, snags, bushes and grass. The organizers were counting on the fallen forest, which is abundant in these places, but there was still not enough for such a large number of teams (about 60) and objects (about 70). Some resourceful architects floated logs on the lake from the opposite bank. The townspeople were not scared by the shortage of nails - the logs were tied with ropes: it turned out not so firmly, but it was stable. The teams took ropes and some other materials with them, which was agreed in advance by the organizers, and in this sense the Vladivostok team was most impressed by it, which reached the Green City by car and brought solar panels for its facility.
In general, the difficult road situation, constantly changing weather and "interruptions" with building materials forced the architects to literally survive in the difficult conditions of the Altai Mountains. Creativity also survived in this environment. The construction was carried out in sunny weather, and in pouring rain, in cold water and high in the trees. With the tenacity of a primitive man, the architects erected step by step eco-houses, rafts, marinas and ferries. Someone abandoned their "homework" and developed a new project on the spot, while someone, on the contrary, stubbornly implemented what they had in mind. Many objects that were originally supposed to be built on land were eventually launched. According to the architects who were at Zurbagan, last year's summer festival in Crimea, there weren't even so many objects on the water there, although the sea was much warmer than a mountain lake in Altai.
The culmination of the festival was its official closing on the evening of August 8 - by this time all the objects were completed, and the team captains, presenting each building, talked about the ideas embedded in them and their functional purpose. After the presentation, the townspeople were able to walk through the completed objects and "try" them, especially since in many of them they were treated to hot tea and sweets.
On the closing day, Green City, as if by magic, turned into a real metropolis in one minute, in which life is in full swing, and individual art objects unexpectedly became a part of the whole. As in a real city, there were residential buildings, temples, marinas, teahouses, benches, fountains. There was even a registry office, where the townspeople entered into a "legal" marriage, valid only on the territory of the "Green City". Of course, local sights appeared immediately. So, walking along the shore of the lake, one could see a lonely bench standing far in the water, to which a pier led, sunk shallowly under the water and illuminated from below with multi-colored candles. From the side it seemed that the bench was standing right in the middle of the lake, forming a place for solitude and meditation. Presenting this object, its creators explained their idea in one phrase: "We built a bridge to the other side of the lake: the first 20 meters for sinners, the rest - for the saints."
Not far from the shop, there was also an object "Shalash" in the water, which was a flooring on piles, covered with a semicircular canopy, woven from crooked branches. Another object - "Temple of the Wind" - is located in the forest. In shape, it resembled a hut in the form of a cone with a sharply elongated and bent sideways sharp top. As if a strong gust of wind tilted his spire, and in this position the "temple" froze. The "Temple of the Wind" was not built in the "Green City" by accident: the architects wanted to appease the spirits of the weather.
In general, the "Green City" for many architects has become a test of not only creative, but also vitality. Sometimes it seemed that physical survival in the difficult conditions of Gorny Altai was more important than architecture, but creativity won the festival. And the result in the form of seventy buildings made of natural materials, created in the pouring rains and the scorching sun, speaks for itself. Participants of the "Green City" unanimously call it magic, a wonderful coincidence of circumstances, namely the place, time and theme of the festival. On our own behalf, we add that the time, the place, and the theme "sounded" so effectively and loudly, thanks, first of all, to the architects - the wizards of the "Green City", without whom it would never have been born.
