MOROZ city was built as part of the Snow-Grad Tour festival, which for the third year has been conducted by Kirill Bair's workshop, specializing in landscape design and various sculptures: sand, wood and ice. The co-organizers were the project of Petr Vinogradov "Pro. Dvizhenie" and the "Bureau of architectural finds ARKH NAKH". In December, the organizers held a competition of projects, intending to choose some of the most worthy ones. However, having received 30 works from 120 participants from different cities of the country, the jury decided not to choose anyone and to give all authors the opportunity to realize their ideas. So life became the main judge: on the site (with a total area of 2500 square meters), as a result, not 30 were built, but half as many. However, it did not get any worse: if all the volumes were built on this territory, it would be cramped there.
Although the confusion, as a rule inherent in such events, did not bypass this: the projects posted on the organizers' website often do not look like what was built, there are no implemented objects among the participants of the competition on the site at all, and the organizers themselves, on the opening day, showing MOROZ-town to journalists, they got confused in names and asked the authors for names again. This does not in the least spoil the impressions of the multi-colored extravaganza and fun parties, but as a result, we did not manage to identify the authors of some objects, which we warn you about right away: dear authors, if you were not mentioned or confused, please write to us.
The organizers emphasize that their frosty town has everything that is supposed to be: a prison, a lighthouse, a golf course, a bathhouse, a labyrinth of Pakmasaurus (northern Minotaur), a cinema and a philharmonic hall. Ivan Lazhechnikov's "Ice House", apparently, will never leave the builders of snow houses alone: in the MOROZ city falconry, the wedding has become the main theme. One of the largest and most striking installations in the very center of the site is called In love (although the organizers more willingly call it the registry office; author Ksenia Chernyakova). Two rows of giant faces carved out of snow (the Sun, the Moon, a man and a woman) slightly higher than human height form a corridor with a small platform in the center. In the ice of the site, the connected wedding rings glow with a bright green color, which leaves no doubt about the purpose of the object.
Walking along the rings, the visitor finds himself on the ice bridge "Frozen Melody" by Olesya Smirnova,
which leads to an ice house with a bridal bed. This is the Ice hotel living space, designed and built jointly by the "Economov Architecture and Design" studio and the "Hwang and K" workshop.
On the right is a bathhouse built by the young architects of the Mandarinki group from Rostov-on-Don - a compact hut that would fit the polar Shrek, with crooked ice bindings in the window, a large ice pipe pasted over with snowflakes, and an ice flame in a hearth illuminated by red light. This is one of the coziest objects of the snow town. It glows blue during the day and warm yellow at night.
However, there are more objects of "cultural education" in the town than matrimonial ones. In the snowy wall opposite the bath, there are niches of the Art Gallery by Andrey Nazarov from Velsk.
The most fascinating attraction must be recognized as the "Philharmonic" from the "Badgers" group, located to the left of the "registry office" in two miniature snow caves. It is filled with a variety of bells that anyone can jingle with. To complete the picture, a snow harpsichord with real candles, a double bass are sculpted in the walls, an ice violin lies in a niche.
The right slope of the "ZAGS" was turned into large steps of the cinema (authors - the ASF team from Tyumen):
Next to the cinema - Frozen installation by INDEX_NAZHDAK, consisting of sharp ice stalagmites and a small bar. On the opening day in the bar, guests were treated to cookies, offering to choose one of the New Year's wishes: "health", "happiness" or "freedom". And the sensors inside the stalagmites, which, according to the authors, were supposed to provide interactivity to the icicles, did not work at the opening - although there is still a long time to fix them until March.
In the right corner of the town there is the tallest object - a lighthouse painted with red paint from the Vetrograd group, with a staircase to a snowy hill inside the tower. The authors assure that, having climbed the stairs, it is impossible to go back down, and even - that they forced the operator with a TV camera down the hill - they do not present evidence.
Further - "Prison-gazebo", built by the Moscow group "Archives", a bit like a bathhouse on the opposite pole of the city, but a little more brutal.
Many (even organizers) confused the "Temple of Love" by the "Strogachi" group with a museum, although most of all it looks like a small pre-classical peripter, especially since an ice female torso is installed inside - not otherwise Venus, protected at the entrance by two beast-headed figures.
One of the most labor-intensive, apparently, turned out to be a miniature Crazy golf, filled (like Disneyland) with replicas of the most famous buildings in the world. Ice paths and holes include the Colosseum, Arc de Triomphe, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower.
In the far corners of the town you can also find: a labyrinth with a bar,
and the "Chapel of Time" by Mikhail Zvyagin: five ice wings around an imaginary "fire" made of white lighting.
Backlighting is one of the most spectacular tricks of the town: it is best to come to MOROZ city at dusk, since most objects not only glow, but also constantly change color. In a word, this is a wonderful attraction, although it is not so easy to find it in Sokolniki (after entering, you need to turn left, walk to Sand Alley and, after passing the amusement park, turn right, where a town is discovered behind the trees, which is absolutely miniature on the scale of the park). However, from today the event seems to be planning to spread along the avenues of Sokolniki: new actions will be exclusively sculptural and ice blanks have been installed on the paths for them.
