Curator: Artem Dezhurko
Texts: Yulia Bogatko, Artem Dezhurko
Graphics: Anton Aleinikov
Maria Garenskikh
The hairdresser
Where we just didn’t live! My dad is a military sailor. We came from Vladivostok to Moscow in 1968-1969. In Moscow, they lived on Sadovaya, then on Durov Street. They moved into this apartment sometime in 1977-1978. I then went to the seventh grade.
We brought something from Vladivostok, but hardly a lot. The furniture was most likely purchased already in Moscow. Light red furniture with legs - bookcases, sideboard - probably from the 60s.
And the dark bedroom was bought in the late 70s. The furniture in the hallway is homemade. Dad put together a table with stools himself. The built-in wardrobe and under the mirror were made by some of his acquaintances. There the mirror is old, and the glass under the mirror is new. And the floors, ceilings with stucco molding - everything remained from 1937, when the house was built.
The apartment has good painting. The painting with warships is the work of artist Denisov, marine painter, Honored Artist of Russia. It was popular during the Soviet years. He was a friend of my father and gave this painting to him. A landscape with a river is also a gift from a friend of my dad. There is a picture of the Chusovaya river, where dad (he comes from near Tobolsk) with a friend fished together.
We have a big family, and we all do not fit in the apartment, we live in turns. My parents lived there all the time. Now my mother (my father recently died) and my eldest son with his wife and child live permanently. I live there with my little child from time to time. Daughter, Nastya, until the age of sixteen or seventeen lived in the same room with her brother, and then moved to another grandmother, where she had a separate room. But she often visits this apartment even now.
In the room I now occupy, I recently did renovations. It was a surprise for my parents, and I tried to take good care of everything that is there. I chose the wallpaper so that my parents would like it … In my opinion, the apartment is rather shabby. We always want to repair it, but we have neither the strength nor the funds.
The apartment is always densely populated. There were seas of guests before I calmed down. We celebrated stormy birthdays, thirty people each, with barbecue on the balcony. Parents' birthdays while they were young and in power, with games, wall newspapers.
Alexander Kuptsov, Ekaterina Shapurova
architects
Alexander: The house is the only one, realized according to the General plan of 1935 on Kotelnicheskaya embankment, according to the project of the future chief architect of Moscow, Joseph Loveiko, who then worked in the workshop of Daniil Fridman. The project was 1935-37, and the construction was 1939-46. This is the house of the Inzhkoopstroy Narkomlegprom. The daughter of the Minister of Light Industry lives below us.
Ekaterina: Our family moved here in 69.
Alexander: There was a choice: either Sivtsev vrazhek, or Kotelnicheskaya embankment. When Katina's mother saw the view …
Ekaterina: … and my mother was studying to be an architect at that time, she said: "We must take!" And it was a communal apartment, with monstrous green walls, three locks in each door … All this had to be put in order. My grandfather's friend, the general, was tidying up with his workers from the KGB household. And my grandfather was the deputy minister of rural construction.
Alexander: The wall and the coffee table are from the GDR. Soviet floor lamp. Grandfather brought a serving table from Baku. The chandelier is from Karlovy Vary. Shoe rack from Romania, from the city of Satu Mare. The coffee service is Meissen porcelain. The salad tureen is German, presented to my grandmother in 1962 by colleagues from the air defense headquarters. Hunting trophies are also grandfathers. I counted thirty-nine victims.
Ekaterina: He only sold his guns the year before last. The 1975 Mayak watch is a legacy of my grandmother on my father's side. We also subscribed to America magazine. It’s very funny to read it now: “aspiring director Woody Allen”, “aspiring Beatles band” …
Alexander: The carpet in the living room has been lying since those times. We pulled the chairs. The fabric is terrible. We will drag again. I bought the Sever radio station at the Hammer for 700 rubles. For half a year we sanded and covered it with enamel. We listen to Radio Russia: in the morning - programs for pensioners about health, and at night - hard rock. I designed the door to Vasilisa's daughter's room. In her room, we put parquet flooring identical to the original. The apartment is so good that I think there should be a minimum of me here.
Soviet furniture: exhibits
Sideboard
From the Wohnzimmer Zeiteling headset. Sassnitz model.
M. Kenzler Heinichen / Sa., East Germany. Serial number 950. Made on October 11, 1967.
Stools
USSR. 1963 g.
Coffee table
"Stambyt", Kromeriz, Czechoslovakia. 1959 - 1960
Dressing table
Moscow Furniture Factory # 6. Article 5108.1964
Coffee table
From the table set, type 1038, var. II. I grade.
Chersk furniture factory, Poland. Until 1965
Cabinet for linen
"Stambyt", Kromeriz, Czechoslovakia. 1959 - 1960
Armchairs
From the living room headset.
Article 623/11. Romania. Produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Sideboard
From the living room headset. Model 14-47.
Tatra nábytok, plant in Pravenets, Czechoslovakia. Series 64, number 46.1966
