Midnight in Moscow

I have to confess, despite considering it to be primarily for tourists, and knowing that its a place that Muscovites don't really hang out in, I love Red Square. From my very non-Russian point of view the square is Moscow - those fantastic onion domes of St. Basil's Cathedral - so imposing from the outside and relatively small on the inside; the views across to the Kremlin's domes from the square and the juxtaposition of Lenin's tomb together with the remains of several other Soviet leaders looking directly across at Moscow's once drab and now glitzy department store - GUM (pronounced "goom"). How ironic that Lenin and his comrades should come to rest looking at a symbol of the new capitalist Moscow - money and lots of it!

GUM by night

This is a very expensive city. Eating reasonably well is not cheap. I am very fond of an Armenian restaurant - Cafe Ararat that sits in the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel. The food is good - this time I enjoyed lavash (the Armenian flat bread) together with herbs and soft curdy cheese, followed by a delicious lentil, walnut and herb soup, all washed down with apricot juice, Germuk - the slightly salty Armenian mineral water and followed by "sand" coffee and an Armenian take on creme brûlée. Extremely tasty, extremely satisfying, extremely expensive - the equivalent of fifty pounds - just for me, and with no alcohol!

Still, I enjoyed the food and the service was good, very good.This is not always the case in Russia where service can be outstandingly good (as at my hotel - the Metropol) or spectacularly bad. After dinner one evening I decided to have my coffee elsewhere and wandered into the Moscow branch of Le Pain Quotidien. OK so its an international chain, but its a good one and I fancied a nice coffee and a strawberry tart. Things did not go well. The waiter began by denying the existence of an English menu, which I could see lying on the next table, then pretty much refused to take any order for around 20 minutes by which point I had decided that there are other coffee shops in Moscow and left. On the way out I encountered the duty manager - a well turned out smiling young woman with good English. She seemed to find the incident amusing to the point of laughing out loud. I reassured her that it wasn't, pointing out the unintelligent example she was setting her staff. The laugh ceased and the lips turned into an inverted "U". Of course, I hated myself later for letting the incident annoy me, but this young woman didn't even have the excuse of not having learned any customer care skills in Soviet times. Rant now complete, thanks for listening.

Of course there is also a "third way" to service in some Moscow restaurants. My favourite which shall remain nameless was where a very keen, very smiley, very polite young waitress took my order for soup and asked me if I would also want dessert. I ordered ice cream which she then brought with a beatific smile. Great, except the soup hadn't arrived at that point. I asked about the soup and was told "wait". It came soon after. Well she tried.

As well as frequenting Red Square, getting cross in cafes and enjoying my lovely hotel, I took advantage of an unusual guided walk. I have recently read Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita after having seen the Thetare de Complicite's stage performance earlier this year. Intrigued by what a "Bulgakov tour" might involve, I signed up. The walk retraced the steps of the Master and Margarita's plot, including the Patriarchs Ponds (incidentally there is only one pond, so not sure why it has a name in plural), a chance to sit on the bench where  Woland first met Berlioz (not the composer) and Bezdomny. OK so I know its not the bench, but I like the idea that someone has gone to the trouble of trying to work out where that particular bench would have been situated.

You then get to see the point in the road, where as predicted the young woman spills cooking oil, Berlioz slips in it and is killed by an on-coming tram being driven by a woman. Great detail, even if the guide did advise me that it seems no tram ever ran through this square. Has he never heard of the willing suspension of disbelief? The tour goes on to include a peep at the house alleged to have been Margarita's when she lived with her husband. It is generally believed that Margarita was based on a real life character who shared that house with her real life husband - a senior Communist Party official!

Best of all is the Bulgakov House Museum where the tour ends. The museum is located in the apartment that Bulgakov once occupied on the Garden Ring. The apartment is reached through climbing several sets of stairs. The stairwell is decorated with graffiti related to the Master and Margarita, some of it extremely well done and witty. Apparently the residents in the rest of the block do not like this, seeing it as vandalism and regularly painting over it, much to the chagrin of my guide.

The apartment has a series of rooms, recreating the Soviet Moscow of the 1920's and 1930's, with its shared approach to living - several families would have lived here, each with a tiny space of their own and sharing the dark kitchen. Communal living offered few opportunities for privacy, many for snooping and spying (with the encouragement of the state of course) and resulted in many disagreements between tenants, including over the alleged theft of food!

Courtyard of the apartment block where Bulgakov lived

Bulgakov's writing room is re-created with copies of the original furniture. Do not be taken in by the large black cat laid sleeping on the desk. It is real, as several other visitors found to their surprise when touching him to check! Behemoth reincarnated perhaps? The museum does Bulgakov tours by arrangement. Beware of the rival museum on the ground floor in the courtyard of this building - it has no real links with Bulgakov and contains no original furnishings or other items.

I have already written about constructivist architecture in Moscow here, but I also find the city's Style Moderne architecture thrilling. Style Moderne was the Russian take on art nouveau and one of the best examples of this is the Gorky House Museum, originally known as the Ryabushinsky Mansion, completed in 1902 and designed by Feodor Shekhtel, one of Russia's greatest ever architects. The original residents fled the Bolsheviks who used the house as an administrative building until it was given to author Maxim Gorky in 1931. Gorky is reported to have disliked the house which only goes to show that even great artists often lack taste in other people's fields.

Detail of the Ryabushinsky Mansion staircase

The house contains a number of items relating to Gorky and his family, but make no mistake the star of the show is the building itself. The hall and its central staircase is absolutely stunning with its wave like Italian limestone staircase, stalactite lamp, dark wood panelling and colourful Japanese influenced stained glass. This was my second visit to the house and a new treat was in store for me. The Ryabushinsky family were "Old Believers" a Christian sect forbidden in Tsarist Russia. Like many wealthy members of the sect, the Ryabushinky's had a secret chapel in their house - this one in the attic. It has been recently restored and is open to visitors. It is an absolute riot of colour and reminded me very much of some of the earlier works of Koloman Moser. Well worth the climb to the upper floors for a look!

The city has many other Style Moderne buildings as well as buildings in the "Neo-Russian" style which  also paid tribute to art nouveau. Some of these are hidden in relatively ordinary streets and can either be missed if you don't have your wits about you or take some finding even if you know about them. One of my other favourites is the the former Moscow dormitory for visiting Orthodox priests, hidden behind Tvertskaya Boulevard. Once facing directly on to the main road, the building was enclosed by new structures when Stalin decided to remodel Tvertskaya as part of his new look Moscow. Now tucked away behind some fairly nondescript buildings it is well worth searching out and admiring. I love the multi coloured tiles and interesting features it boasts, especially the detail around the windows.

Also tucked away is the Sokol building at Mashkov 94, built 1902-03 and designed by Ivan Mashkov. The round bay on the house's facade is set off with extremely ornate ironwork whilst the large ceramic panels at the apex of the house, designed by Nicola Sapunov, show a falcon flying over snow-capped waves. Sokol is the Russian word for falcon. These panels were the subject of a lawsuit between the designers of the  Metropol Hotel and Mashkov, both claiming to have been plagiarised by the other. The Metropol won out.  If you want to know more, there is a great book by Kathleen Berton Murrell called "Moscow Art Nouveau". Its very difficult to get hold off and dreadfully expensive, but just leafing through my precious copy to check some of my dates here has made me want to return to Moscow to explore further.

Sokol building

This post began in Red Square. It is headed "Midnight in Moscow". Why? well, I happen to be addicted to the tune of the same name, written by Vasiliy Solovyov-Sedoi and Mikhail Matusovsky in the 1950's and originally entitled Leningrad Nights, I have associated the tune with Red Square ever since hearing it as a small child and seeing images of St. Basil's. And not just this. One night when leaving the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv, I came upon at least 100 couples of mainly older people dancing to this music in the square and for some reason felt extremely touched. So, I always wanted to hear the tune in Red Square at midnight. I might have had to settle for hearing it on my i-pod, but I did it and if I say so myself, took a rather nice picture of the GUM department store to prove it!

Jewish Moscow

It is estimated that around 80,000 Jews now live in Moscow. Before 1905 this would have been unthinkable as Jews were legally barred from living in the city. Some exceptions would apply to individuals with skills or a trade that the city was short of and in these circumstances, the long established anti-semitic laws confining Jews to the Pale of Settlement in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Ukraine and Belarus would  sometimes be waived.

For almost the entire Soviet period, Jewish culture, religion and history was ruthlessly suppressed. Emigration was forbidden. Hebrew was forbidden. Support for Israel was looked on as being disloyal to the Soviet Union. Following the fall of the Communist regime, over one million Jews left the former Soviet Union to settle in Israel. Russian can be heard in all of Israel's major towns and cities and there are many businesses with both Russian and Hebrew signs in Haifa, Jerusalem and other cities.

A new Museum of Jewish History in Russia, funded privately, opened in 2011 in an office building close to the Dinamo Moscow stadium. I found out about the museum when browsing the internet and made an online appointment to view the collection. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit but finding the building and then gaining access was a bit of a challenge. I do not speak Russian. The security man looking after the whole building (not just the museum) spoke only Russian. He was not especially helpful and took the somewhat British approach to speaking to foreigners who don't understand - shout very loud and waive your arms a lot. Thankfully I was rescued by one of the museum staff who saw me and let me in.

Once inside, it soon became clear that the time and energy spent trying to find the museum and then to gain access was well worth the effort. I was shown around by a non-Jewish but extremely knowledgeable employee at the museum - Svetlana, who speaks much better Hebrew than I do and knows Yiddish too! The museum consists of a number of galleries showing different aspects of the Jewish experience in Russia, including religion, politics, everyday life in the shtetl compared to that in the city and also arts and cultural activities. The theatre gallery includes some wonderful playbills and photographs of the former Moscow State Yiddish Theatre (known as the GOSET) whilst overall, the collection consists of about 4,000 items. Svetlana advised me that many of them came from Moldova, Ukraine and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

In acknowledgement of the diversity of "Russian" Jewry, there is also a gallery that currently displays clothing, household and ritual implements and photographs recording the history and culture of Jews from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Bukhara. This was very interesting, especially as just a week previously, I had visited the entirely Jewish town of Krasnaya Sloboda in Azerbaijan and taken pictures of some of the places featured in this exhibition!

The museum is also making its presence felt more widely, contributing items to the current Chagall exhibition at the Tretyakov and also to the "To See and Remember" exhibition of Jewish religious objects at Moscow's Russian Library of Foreign Literature. I made it to the Chagall exhibition at the "old" Tretyakov in Lavrushinsky Lane. The exhibition marks the 125th anniversary of the artist's birth and is entitled "The Origins of the Master's Creative Language", setting his work in the context of his Judaism, early life in Vitebsk (now in Belarus) and experiences as a young artist in Paris. The exhibition includes paintings, graphics, drawings and personal items belonging to Chagall. The signage is in Russian only, and there does not appear to be a catalogue but it is well worth spending an hour here as a number of the works on display are from private collections with no regular access for the public.

I stayed at the Metropol Hotel whilst in Moscow (pictured below). It is a beautiful art nouveau/ style moderne building from the end of the 19th century which among other things features some fabulous external mosaic  murals by Vrubel. The hotel also has an interesting Jewish connection. A suite of rooms formed the original Israeli Embassy in Russia following Israel's independence in 1948. The first ambassador was Golda Meyer. In Martin Gilbert's book "Israel, a history" the author tells how Golda recalled holding an open house every Friday evening in the hope that some of Russia's then 2.5 million Jews would drop in for cakes and tea. Journalist visited as did Jews and non-Jews from other embassies, but no Russians came and no Russian Jews came - out of fear of the regime, which steadfastly maintained there was no "Jewish problem" in Russia and which forbade emigration. We will come to how Golda eventually got to meet Moscow's Jews a little further on.

I visited three synagogues during the time I was one in Moscow. I had been to the Choral Synagogue (pictured below) before, back in 2008. This is a building with an interesting history. Before the 1905 revolution, the Tsarist authorities had forbidden the construction of synagogues inside the formerly enclosed Kitai-Gorod area of Moscow and so the Choral was built a short distance from its walls. Austrian architect, Semeon Eibschutz was appointed by Moscow's Jewish community in 1881but had his original plans rejected by the city authorities. His second attempt won approval in 1886 and construction began in May 1887 but the authorities ordered the removal of the completed dome and forbade the exterior image of the scrolls of Moses. Five years later, with the building still not complete, the city again intervened to prevent it opening and it was not until 1906 that the Synagogue eventually began to be used for its intended purpose. In the meantime, Eibschutz died in 1898 and architect Roman Klein was brought in to complete the works.

This was the only synagogue to operate throughout the entire Soviet period and was subject to constant surveillance and harassment from the authorities. People were photographed leaving the synagogue and often lost their jobs soon after. Like all religious authorities, the rabbi was required to complete reports for the state on who attended services, how they behaved and what they had said whilst there. To make matters worse, the state occupied parts of the building in both both 1923 and 1960 for non-religious purposes.

Golda Meyer pops up here again. In October 1948 she made an  unauthorised visit to the synagogue for Rosh Hoshanah. Both Golda and the authorities were astounded that around 50,000 people turned up rather than the normal 2,000 at the high holy days, calling out "shalom" and "Golda". This was the most public display of Russian Jewish support for the newly restored State of Israel and she recalled being overwhelmed by the emotional response to her visit - women came to her in the women's gallery to look at her or touch her coat. She remembered being so emotional that she did not know what to say. Bundled into a car to help her extrapolate herself from the crowd, she wound down the window and said in Yiddish "A dank eich dos ibr sent geblieben Yidden ", which means "thank you for remaining Jews". Ten days later she returned to the synagogue for the Yom Kippur service to a reception from another vast crowd. She later recalled that when the rabbi recited the closing words of the service - next year in Jerusalem - "a tremor went through the entire synagogue". It would take a lot longer than one year for most of Russia's Jews to realise their dream of reaching Israel.

On my most recent visit to the Choral synagogue, the service was still progressing and I was unable to take photographs. I was most touched by the scenes inside the main prayer hall with a group of primarily (although not entirely), older men gathered around the bimah to witness the reading of the Torah and waiting to be called up to read themselves.

Eibschutz designed a synagogue that at least from the outside resembled a cathedral. The building is large and imposing, but apart from the Magen Dovid on the dome, it could easily be taken for a church. Despite its size, the building is easily missed from the end of the street and in order to fully appreciate its size and to see the Magen Dovid, one must stand well back on the opposite side of the road - occupying ground formerly frequented by the KGB. The interior is exquisite. The main prayer hall has an extremely beautiful cupola with strong blues and greens and which depicts trees and floral motifs. The synagogue is Ashkenazi and Orthodox but also houses smaller prayer halls for Georgian, Sephardi and Bukharan Jews who follow different traditions.

There are also two Lubavitcher synagogues in the city, both of which I visited. Both have an impressive network of services for their congregations, including various kinds of advice, Hebrew classes, health activity and other support in addition to ministering for the religious wellbeing of the community. The Bronnaya synagogue Agudas Chasidei Chabad (see below) is housed in a striking structure where an older building has been encased in a glass atrium and new towers built with a dominating menorah showing on the exterior. This synagogue once had a theatre as a neighbour. Solomon Mikhoels, the genius and star of the Moscow Yiddish Theatre was linked to it. A convinced atheist and devoted communist, Mikhoels is believed to have been happy when the authorities closed the synagogue in the 1930's. Unfortunately, he was also to fall foul of the regime and to die in suspicious circumstances.

Before we leave the synagogues, a word about security. Moscow's synagogues have fairly heavy duty security in response to a series of attacks over a number of years - some fatal. I fully understand and support the need for this type of security but got the feeling that some of these men had watched too many Hollywood movies - check the suits, hairstyles and the severely snarly attitude. I am reliably informed that Russia's burgeoning security industry is largely led by former KGB men and that this was deliberately encouraged and developed in order to prevent them drifting into organised crime.

The aforementioned Solomon Mikhoels was one of Russian Jewry's most interesting and talented characters. Born in what is now Latvia in 1890, he had a stellar career in the theatre before becoming artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre in 1928. He shone in a range of roles including Tevye the Milkman in Sholem Aleichem's play of the same name, as Jewish heroical historical figure Bar Kochba and most famously of all as King Lear in the Yiddish version of Shakespeare's play.

Although Mikhoels was without doubt a major star in the Yiddish Theatre, it is important to note that he was one of many hugely important actors, artists, musicians and designers connected with the company.   Chagall, Nathan Altman, Robert Falk Aleksander Tyshler and Isaac Rabinovich all designed scenery and or playbills and programmes for the theatre. Joseph Achron composed music for the theatre. Isaac Babel wrote screenplays for films made by the theatre whilst the works of writers Isaac Leib Peretz, Sholem Asch, S An-sky and Sholem Aleichem were adapted for the theatre. Hannah Rovina, Benjamin Zuskin and Mikhoels were amongst the theatre's most accomplished actors - Rovina eventually leaving for Tel Aviv where she became the star of the emerging (and still thriving) national theatre there - Habima. The Moscow State Yiddish Theatre had probably the most astonishingly talented group of artists ever assembled in the Soviet Union. Sadly many of them felt obliged to flee the country, were executed or exiled during Stalin's terror that commenced in 1937 and continued in various forms until his death in 1953.

Mikhoels was a key player in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, cynically established by Stalin  during the second world war. Stalin made use of the actor during the war years, sending him to the USA to raise funds, ostensibly to assist and resettle Jews fleeing from German persecution further west. Mikhoels was very persuasive and is known to have raised millions of dollars for this cause. What is also known is that Stalin gratefully received the money but there is no record of any of it being spent on the purpose for which it was raised. Mikhoels was the most prominent member of the Committee. Whilst Stalin was happy to stage show trials for the other leading lights resulting in the execution of all but two of  the Committee members, a show trial for Mikhoels could have been dangerous as he had been extremely close to Stalin. Rather conveniently, he was killed in January 1948 in a hit and run incident in Minsk. It is widely believed that the accident was staged on Stalin's orders. A plaque to Mikhoels (pictured below) can be seen on the facade of the theatre around the corner from the Bronnaya synagogue. His death precursed a significant shift in state policy to one of vigorous anti-semitism with staged trials, the coining of the phrase "rootless cosmopolitans" to describe Jews in order to avoid accusation of racial persecution and complete suppression of Jewish religious and cultural activity.

Aside from  Mikhoels, the most famous of the Russian Jewish artists to perish as a result of Stalin's paranoia was probably the poet Osip Mandelstam. Another convinced communist, he became disillusioned with the Soviet Union, wrote a poem critical of Stalin, for which he served time in prison, was tortured and eventually exiled to the freezing far eastern region of Russia where he died of starvation. There is a plaque to Mandelstam on the external wall of the former Writer's Club in Moscow.

And what of today? Moscow is seen as the centre of Jewish life in Russia. Although the community is large compared to other cities in the country, it is tiny compared to the overall population as Moscow is a city of at least 12 million people. There is a revival of Jewish culture, evidenced by the development of the new museum, the themes of exhibitions held elsewhere in the city and the growing Lubavitcher presence in Moscow - all of this despite seven decades of Soviet persecution preceded by centuries of persecution under the previous regime. Svetlana, my guide at the museum told me that many people are rediscovering their Jewish roots or ancestry and that there is almost an element of "trendiness" in discovering a Jewish grandparent. That is an interesting idea, but I am unsure of how valuable or realistic such feelings are to the revival of Jewish culture and religion in this huge city. Witness the security measures felt necessary at the synagogues. Time will tell.

Moscow avant-garde - constructivist architecture and the new Tretyakov Gallery

I am a self confessed Russophile. When planning my recent trip to Azerbaijan, it occurred to me that I could spend a few days in Moscow on the way back, and so a little impulsively I tacked four nights in Moscow on to the end of what was meant to be just one week away in the Caucasus!

Having been before and visited the usual tourist sites - St. Basil's Cathedral, the Kremlin, etc. I decided to do something a little different. There have been a number of Russian themed exhibitions in London recently, including "Building The Revolution" at the Royal Academy and the constructivism exhibition at Tate Modern last year that focused on the works of Rodchenko and Popova. I loved both of these exhibitions and decided to go and take a look at some of the buildings myself, and to have another look at the avant-garde artists of the 1920's and 1930's.

I spent a day and a half touring Moscow by Metro, by bus, by taxi and on foot to track down some of the remaining constructivist buildings which are scattered across the city.  I will write about just a few of them here. Many are in a very poor state of repair - the Narkomfin building and Melnikov's house, probably being in the worst state. Others continue to function, such as the Intourist garage and the Izvestia building, whilst others have been damaged by ugly extensions or other factors.

There seems to be a complete lack of understanding in Moscow about the cultural importance of these buildings and indeed, if nothing else, of their potential financial value were they to be restored (not renovated please note), marketed as tourist attractions, or in the case of Narkomfin, brought into use as private flats (I can hear the architect and the original inhabitants turning in their grave at this, but there appears to be no state willingness to rescue the building which is pretty much derelict). I can see no good reason for this neglect - there is no lack of money in Russia for building projects, although it was proposed to me that constructivism = communism = bad and therefore worthless in the few of many people.  It is ironic that Stalin rejected and suppressed constructivism - it seems fated to be unloved.

In the years immediately following the revolution of 1917, architecture and the arts generally were used to try to shape a new society, one built on communal living. Built in 1930, the Narkomfin is a prime example of this. It included communal cooking facilities and a dining room, a somewhat bourgeois rooftop swimming pool (!) - communal laundry and showering facilities, library, and gymnasium. Of the 54 flats in the building, none (at least legally) had their own kitchen. However, the Soviet utopia showed cracks fairly early on and Stalin specifically disliked the Narkomfin, referring to it as "Trotsykist". It is located at 25 Novinskii Bulvar.

The main body of the Narkomfin is not especially beautiful but its iconic balconies (pictured below and which would not be out of place in Tel Aviv) and its communal dining facility give clues to how it once looked. Jewish architect Moisei Ginsburg designed the Narkomfin, as well as being a writer and teacher. He was enthusiastic about Le Corbusier's philosophy and must have been thrilled when the Swiss architect  listed the Narkomfin as one of his own sources of inspiration. Ginzburg initially resisted the state pressure to turn back to historicism in architecture, going so far as to speak in defence of artistic independence for an hour at the first Congress of Soviet Architects in 1937, but like many others, he too eventually took discretion to be the better part of valour and conformed.

Balconies of the Narkofin building

The Narkomfin is my personal favourite Constructivist building in Moscow, but I also have a strong admiration for the works of architectural genius Konstantin Melnikov. Melnikov worked for the regime designing a number of workers' clubs, bus garages and of course, his own private residence in the Arbat quarter. He won a competition to build a number of workers' clubs across Moscow. The clubs were an important part of the regime's plans to collectivise society, providing education, propaganda and community centre functions for workers living in the vicinity.

The Rusakov Workers' Club is, to say the least, an extremely unusual building, with three cantilevered sections at the front holding seating areas but which could also be used as completely independent halls or linked together to seat 1000 people. I understand that the current drab colours were not the original, but a clue to a more vibrant look can be found at the rear where some areas of red remain! It is unlikely that such a building could have been constructed much later than this as by 1930 Stalin wished to move to a more historicist (and less interesting or challenging) style. Melnikov designed no further buildings for the state and retired from architecture in 1933.

Rusakov Workers' Club

One of his most striking works - the Intourist Bus Garage (pictured below) was completed after his retirement in 1934. The facade of the garage is retained today but Melnikov had plans for a much grander structure than even this. Unfortunately his plans were not deemed appropriate and a dull looking wing was added to the building to complete it. The garage is still used by Intourist and can be found at Suchevsky Val Street 33. Although it may be a little worse for ware, the garage is still in use and is in a much happier condition than Melnikov's own house at Krivarbatskii Pereulok 17. The house is locked and appears deserted. It has been the subject of a protracted legal battle including Melnikov's (now dead) son to his first wife and Melnikov's final, much younger wife who is since remarried to an extremely wealthy businessman. Her new husband has purchased the adjacent land, and built mock "old" houses on it. The vibrations from those building works caused significant damage to the house. The garden is badly overgrown so its hard even to take decent photographs now and the sign stating the house to be under government protection seems to be fairly meaningless.

Intourist Bus Garage

The architect described his house as consisting of two cylinders, one eleven metres high, the other eight metres, intersecting for one third of their diameters. The internal space is allocated to three near circular spaces dedicated respectively to sleeping, living and working. Melnikov described the ground floor kitchen and dining area as the "stomach" of the house, the first floor bedroom and living room as its "heart" and the top floor studio as its "brain". The hexagonal windows were designed to cast light that is both intense and even in line with his belief that a good sleep depends on the quality and amount of available light. He would be somewhat distressed today as most of the natural light must have been blocked by the overgrown garden and adjoining structures. He was heavily criticised both for the design and for the idea of having a large private space which was completely against the prevailing philosophy if not the law. Thankfully, he seems not to have cared!

A much lesser known building is the former dormitory and club of the Markhlevsky Communist University of Ethnic Minorities (pictured below). Located at Petroverigsky Lane 8/6, this beauty was built between 1929 and 1931 and was a designed by the architect Dankman. The original plans had a communal dining area and other shared facilities as well as the dormitory. Although not in the same state as the Narkomfin, it is in poor shape but according to the external sign, it is being used for student accommodation.

Former club and dormitory of the Markhlevsky Communist University of  Ethnic Minorities

There is an excellent book on the architecture of the constructivist and other twentieth century styles in Moscow - "1920-1960 Moscow Architecture Guide Book" by Natalia and Anna Bronovitskaya, published by Giraffe in 2006. I have been unable to track a copy down. Let me know if you find one!

The Tretyakov Museum's collection of Russian avant-garde art from the 1920's and 30's has to be the best of its kind. Until recently it was housed at the beautiful Tretyakov building in Lavrushinksy Lane with the museum's extensive holdings of earlier Russian art, including a magnificent collection of icons, religious and historical paintings. The avant-garde works are now housed in the new Tretyakov in a major development at Kultury Park.

The collection is breathtaking with room after room of some of the best and most original art ever produced. The first room is given over to the early works of Goncharova and Larionov and includes a textual summary in English as well as Russian. The early years of the twentieth century and indeed the years immediately following the Revolution were a period of immense creativity and also artistic freedom in Russia. The series of exhibition rooms tracks progress from this early flowering, through the darker days of the early 1930's and then the eventual total state control of artistic expression and the official turning against the avant-garde as the 1930's came to a close.

Peacock Bright Sunlight by Natalia Goncahrova

This first room includes Goncharova's "Peacock -Bright Sunlight" from 1911 (left) and "Parrots" from 1910. I was struck by the "bigness" of the paintings. Although not particularly physically large, they dominated the room for me with the "thick" paint and tropical colours, whilst Larionov's "The Waitress" of 1911 also stopped me in my tracks. I can't imagine a work of this nature being allowed in the later 1930's. It shows a well dressed customer standing rather too close to a waitress. There are very strong sexual overtones to the painting - he almost touching her, her with one hand tucked behind her back and the other safely in her pocket, but her expression clearly wanting the closeness. The class differences between the two are obvious and in the background, its possible to make out the scandalised faces of the other cafe customers.

Jews on the Street by Natalia Gocharova

There are a number of Goncharova's paintings of peasants, but I was particularly struck by her "Jews on a Street" (right) of 1912, showing three Jewish women of different ages, two with heads covered and the third a dark haired almost-beauty. Bread, fishes and wine can be seen in the background - for me these are strong Christian references, but who knows what the artist meant by them? 

Amongst the highlights of my visit was seeing Rodchenko's "Workers' Club" of 1925, complete with functional red wooden seating, racks for the display of journals, angled reading desks and even special seating with a built-in chess board for keen players! This particular plan was never realised but it is not hard to see the influence his proposals have had on a number of current designers, including some involved in library design. I would have been very happy to have been able to sit down, take a magazine or a book from the rack and pass several hours relaxing. There was also to have been a "Lenin corner" featuring his portrait and no doubt copies of his speeches - at least the non-realisation of this project spared the workers that!

Lyubov Popova has a number of works on display - including some graphic work. Many Russian artists of the early 20th century were involved in costume and theatre design as well as painting. Popova's "Costume for actor number 5" (1921), for a play called the Magnanimous Cuckold is an example of this multi disciplinary approach by artists of the period. The character's name is re-assuringly Soviet!

The graphic collection is enormous and also includes some interesting works by Sergey Senkin -  a photomontage from the late 1920's entitled "City", Yuri Yurkun's watercolour "Ladies and cavaliers" of 1935 Alexander Tyshler's two works from 1930 "Decreed to take off the veil" and "Listening about the veil". I like these not just because they are great works of art in themselves, but also because they describe the changing political mood in the Soviet Union  from the early 1920's to the late 1930's. Tyshler's works show central asian women listening to a commissar telling them that they were being liberated from their veils by the State - a real historic event and there are photographs and memoirs describing the ritual burning of the veils. It is intriguing that having disposed of them back in the 1930's, then being liberated from Communism twenty years ago, there is a movement to put them back on in some parts of Central Asia. These countries exchanged one kind of oppression for another back in the 1930's. History has a habit of repeating itself.

Senkin's photomontage of skyscrapers and street scenes illustrates the high hopes many people had in the early 1920's in the Soviet Union. It seems to express a new optimism when technology would bring many benefits. As we know the optimism was short lived and Yurkun's watercolour from 1935, a coquettish image of "lades" and "gentlemen" flirting with each other is probably one of the last times such an image would scrape by as acceptable under Stalin. Recent writings about Yurkun, indicating a long time intimate relationship with poet Mikhail Kuzmin may also give additional meaning to the picture - perhaps redefining it as a challenge to the virulent persecution of homosexuals and others deemed anti-Soviet under the communist regime.

Self portrait - Nathan Altman

Two of my favourite artists are also featured in the exhibition. Armenian Matiros Saryan was heavily influenced by his cultural heritage. He has four works on display at the moment and two of them - "Old Yerevan" and "My Family" especially demonstrate his commitment to his background. The main art gallery in Yerevan has a great collection of his works as does the Saryan House Museum, also in Yerevan.

My other favourite - Nathan Altman - is represented here by a self-portrait from 1912 (right), a depiction of a "Provincial town square, Minsk" from 1926 and a surprising sculpted self-portrait from 1916, entitled "Young Jew" complete with side locks!

I pretty much had the gallery to myself. Whilst this was great for me, this would not have been the case at the old location. The nearest metro station is Kultury Park which is a fifteen minutes walk over the Moscow River to the new site. There are no signs to help you get there and when you do reach the park there are road works everywhere - not exactly welcoming. The new home is very Soviet style - massive with huge un-used spaces (maybe there are plans), a cafe that isn't open and a tiny kiosk for a book shop. I sincerely hope they haven't made a mistake by moving this showpiece collection here. Come on Tretyakov - get it sorted! And please, not the ghastly coffee urn stuff you are selling at the old Tretyakov - yes, I spotted the wretched new urn at Kultury Park. For goodness sake!

Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world. These treasures represent just a tiny fraction of what the city holds (and often hides). I am continually struck by the overwhelming creativity of the Russians, despite their inhospitable climate and their terrible history. The Tretyakov's collection and the wonderful buildings I visited represent a very short period in Russian and Muscovite history. Future posts will look at other areas. You can see more pictures from Moscow here.