Stars For The Colonel

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

Mikhail Krasnopivtsev, colonel, commander of the 473rd Infantry Regiment of the 154th Infantry Division of the 50th Army, is famous for being one of the first to enter Kaluga during its liberation in December 1941.

A new square named after him was built on the right bank of the Oka, in the Right Bank microdistrict, where the first apartment building was built in 1982. Around there are mainly typical residential high-rise buildings, and the park, created on the site of a vacant lot, adjoins the almost completed residential complex "Lesnoy" of the PIK company. The residential complex is built in the typical PIK style, which makes it stand out against the background of neighboring, mostly brick, high-rise buildings. The project was implemented entirely at the expense of the budget "within the framework of the national project" Housing and Urban Environment "of the regional project" Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment ".

The monument to Krasnopivtsev (the inscription on the pedestal: "defender of the fatherland from grateful descendants", the author of the sculpture Denis Stritovich) was opened in December 2019: it was brought to the "cape" of the park at the intersection of Fomushin Street, one of the main routes of the Right Bank, and 65th Anniversary of Victory Street … The paving is red.

But the square is not only a memorial, the authors emphasize, it is also a public one, it has a double function, it is planned to hold events here, and just walk and relax. The second part of the square, closer to the residential complex, is of such a public nature. There is more grass here, there are trees that, we hope, will grow (they are still small, but we are not on the Garden Ring either).

Сквер Краснопивцева Фотография © Юрий Бучарский, Кирилл Гусев

In the very center of the park there is the Red Star gazebo: a wooden frame, red plastic of the roof - it is assumed that it will be possible not only to hide from the rain, but also to conduct master classes. In the far part, that is, closer to the houses, there is a pergola in a swing, just like on Triumfalnaya Square - with it, by the way, there is a roll call: there Mayakovsky and the swing, here the commander and the swing.

Thus, the memorial function, which is focused on the intersection in the eastern part of the square, becomes a hybrid, double in the center: a star, a hyperscale symbol read from a car window, does not stand by itself, as in Soviet times, but is "stuffed" with a completely recreational function … And finally, in the western part of the swing - pure entertainment, only a bright red color remained from the symbolism. Here, in the recreational "half", the pavement also loses its red color, turning into neutral shades of gray.

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1/12 Krasnopivtseva Square Photo © Yuri Bucharsky, Kirill Gusev
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2/12 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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3/12 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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4/12 Layout. Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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5/12 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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6/12 Commemorative stele. Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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7/12 Commemorative stele. Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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8/12 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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9/12 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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10/12 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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11/12 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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12/12 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga

“I managed to combine life and memory so that it was not too pretentious and pretentious. It is necessary to speak not just about the greatness of the weapon, but to speak in plain language about the exploits of our Russian people, about the fact that these people are among us, that this is us, the authors emphasize. And I must admit, they are absolutely right.

The authors of the square are the Kaluga Glavarkhitektura personally, the chief architect of the city, Aleksey Komov.

We admit who else but Alexei Komov, an architect who for many years with enviable persistence has been developing themes of Soviet symbols in his installations and objects, in fact, it should have been entrusted with such a thing as a memorial square in memory of the Great Patriotic War. By itself, the sculpture of a commander with a tablet in his hands is not bad, reminiscent of a movie of the seventies, but due to their abundance, bronze monuments, alas, have turned into a commonplace. And bright red installations refresh the discourse, become agents of a modern approach to landscaping, and, in addition, are endowed with clear features of the author's style.

The red star is composed of two volumetric lattices: an unpainted wooden one and a red one, the color of the proletarian banner. The benches are built into unpainted lattices on the inside, and on the outside there is an exhibition on the theme of stars in Soviet orders. The wings of a large star cover the exhibition from the rain, making excellent visors.

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1/16 Krasnopivtsev Square Photo © Yuri Bucharsky, Kirill Gusev
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2/16 Krasnopivtsev Square Photo © Yuri Bucharsky, Kirill Gusev
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3/16 Krasnopivtseva Square Photo © Yuri Bucharsky, Kirill Gusev
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4/16 Krasnopivtseva Square Photo © Yuri Bucharsky, Kirill Gusev
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5/16 Krasnopivtsev Square Photo © Yuri Bucharsky, Kirill Gusev
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6/16 Krasnopivtsev Square Photo © Yuri Bucharsky, Kirill Gusev
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7/16 Krasnopivtseva Square Photo © Yuri Bucharsky, Kirill Gusev
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8/16 Gazebo "Star". Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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9/16 Gazebo "Star". Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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10/16 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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11/16 Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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12/16 Gazebo "Star" night view. Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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13/16 Gazebo "Star". Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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14/16 Gazebo "Star". Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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15/16 Gazebo "Star". Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga
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16/16 Signs and symbols. Krasnopivtsev Square © Glavarkhitektura Kaluga

Everything is very good and meaningful. Finally, the symbol does not go to waste in the middle of the square. Here I recall a giant heart in the Malkovo microdistrict in Naro-Fominsk: there are only photographs, what if you could sit?

The star is complemented by benches from the series of benches by Alexei Komov with stars called La-5, which won the ARCHIWOOD prize in 2013. The idea was specially adapted for the Krasnopivtsev square. They, as befits a memorial park, are not quite anatomical in appearance, without bourgeois curved backs, but strong and impressive. “The benches, by the way, are comfortable,” says Aleksey Komov. - Residents like them. In the shape of the armrests, I was guided by the Corbusian standard."

And finally, a pergola with a swing. The format has already been worked out and readily accepted by adults and children in Moscow and its suburbs; they almost cannot do without it, which is correct. Here is a red frame, and on the side walls - pictures of old aircraft, again, with stars on the fuselages - but also a metaphor of flight, a fraction of which we experience swinging on a swing.

The very idea of combining the archaic idea of erecting a monument with the modern idea of landscaping seems attractive, although, frankly, I would add more greenery. I wonder if it was possible to spend money on bushes and trees instead of a monument? And the stele would remain in the memory of the commander, especially since it is already in the park. People would breathe, and this would be the memory of the red commander brought up by the tsarist army.

As already mentioned, it would be difficult to find an author for the square in honor of the colonel who died in the war (Mikhail Krasnopivtsev fought from the age of 20, a lot and, one must think, like an enthusiast, at the beginning of the Second World War he always left the encirclement, in one of the battles he lost eldest son, and he himself died 3 months after he entered Kaluga - in 1942, again in an attempt to get out of the encirclement).

Alexey Komov regularly demonstrates to the public the results of plastic searches dedicated to Soviet symbols - in this case, with a military monument, they are more than appropriate. These searches are enthusiastic and quite modern, combining quite actual functions with devotion to a certain symbolism and a certain bravado; however, most people, carried away by ideas and symbols, are not alien to bravado. And there is something in this bravado, although the author will probably disagree with me, from Sotsart.

So the decision can cause criticism from two sides.

Someone will say, and why do we need red stars at all? To leave the Soviet past in the past! In no way we can neither chew it nor spit it out …

Someone else will say, from the opposite side - how is it possible, symbols must be worshiped, crawl on your knees, how can you sit on a bench in them and swing on a red swing? [Here I recall the story of Fyodor Abramov "Alka": "I wrapped my ass with a flag - this is the fashion now, huh?" Let me remind you that Alka came to her native village from the city in dark glasses and red pants]. The flag is not a flag, and a sign is not a sign, but it was worth mentioning about the competition for the Mausoleum, and what debates unfolded around it.

So the result looks bold from both positions. In Soviet times, it is not a fact that such installations would have been patted on the head - well, at least after 1931 and until 1985. Here, the star does not look so serious, but rather a museum, which emphasizes her belonging to the past and a playful component; and the prototypes of the avant-garde, which had not yet been completely forgotten by 1942, when Krasnopivtsev died, are being read - it turned out to be pure, romantic, krapoarmeyskaya symbolism, akin to a person from the Chapaev rifle division. But definitely, this version of the memory of the war turned out to be less controversial than the temple-memorial complex in Kubinka.

Yes, both joyful and philanthropic in his own way. The trees would only be planted.