Communal Apartments: New Online Resource

[Olga Zaslavsky]

Hello,
Perhaps, I've missed it, but, on that site, shouldn't there also be a reference to Ilya Kabakov's artistic rendition of kommunalka as  an object of conceptual drawings, paintings, installations, etc.?

Olga Zaslavsky ( a long time ago resident of one of those) and a translator of a few entries from German for the Kabakov catalogue in late 80's.


 
> Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:58:23 -0400
> From: sp27 at CORNELL.EDU
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Communal Apartments: New Online Resource
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> 
> Dear SEELANGERs,
> 
> Please note a new major resource created by the Colgate-Cornell team 
> (joined now by Nancy Ries of Colgate and Ilya Utekin of European University 
> in St. Petersburg).
> 
> http://kommunalka.colgate.edu
> 
> Communal Living in Russia: A Virtual Museum of Soviet Everyday Life
> 
> The site took almost two years to produce, even though it was based on 
> years of earlier research by Ilya Utekhin.
> 
> You'll see three hours of video interviews filmed in St. Petersburg 
> kommunalkas, 350 photographs, dozens of essays, and other materials.
> 
> The site is bilingual: all materials, including the videos, are available 
> in Russian and English. Select a language when you enter and change it at 
> any time. Bilingual displays of all texts are also available.
> 
> Don't miss the "Your Tours" section where you can compile series of 
> exhibits for your students, to be used as assigments or for in-class 
> demonstrations. You can write your own introduction and conclusion to your 
> tours, and even annotate the exhibits. Or you can ask the students to 
> create their own compilations and share them with fellow students or submit 
> them as homework.
> 
> Those of you who may have used "Michael and Svetlana," "Interviews from 
> Russia," "Children from Russia," or "Life on the Atomic River" will 
> recognize the documentary style of the kommunalka videos: they are expertly 
> filmed by the award-winning filmmaker Slawomir Grunberg and, like those 
> films, this new Web site brings exciting questions to the classroom:
> 
> Why does Iraida Yakovlevna say "Mne otdel'naya kvartira ne nuzhna!"
> 
> What does Alla Ignat'evna mean when she says "V novostrojkakh polnaya 
> bezdukhovnost'."
> 
> Did the really live "kak odna bol'shaya sem'ya"?
> 
> Why is the toilet seat hanging in the kitchen, next to a toothbrush?
> 
> Why does the young man refuse to fix the leaking faucet?
> 
> What would you do if you had a similar huge hole in the kitchen ceiling?
> 
> And so on... It's an interesting world, one where much can be learned. The 
> site went up only a week or so ago, but I see that it is already discussed 
> in blogs. One posting that I found through Google says "After viewing the 
> photo galleries or watching the video tours, you don't need any further 
> information about Soviet mentality and Soviet way of life anymore. This 
> virtual museum shows and says everything." (from 
> http://www.urlfan.com/local/soviet_lifestyle/72701135.html )
> 
> The project was supported by a grant from the National Ednowment of the 
> Humanities. The names of the principal authors and the many friends and 
> colleagues who have helped are shown in the About page.
> 
> Please write off-list with any questions. We would be gratefull for 
> opinions and suggestions.
> 
> Slava Paperno 
> 
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