Moscow apartments

O. Vasil’ev, Ė. Bulatov, I. Kabakov and Ė. Gorokhovskii in I. Kabakov atelier. Moscow, 1981. Pic: Igor Makarevich / Arkhiv sovremennogo iskusstva “Garazh”. Fond Igoria Makarevicha.

Place: Moscow

Key words used in place names: pereulok (alley); kol’tso (ring road); bul’var (boulevard); ulitsa (street), Moscow

Description:
Although there had existed private meeting places in the Soviet Union such as Lianozovo hut, in previous years, the escape from public spaces into private apartments took place when the Maiakovskii Square experience came to an end, coinciding with celebrations for Gagarin’s space flight (April, 14th 1961).
One of the most important private spaces was the home of Ekaterina Fride, who having owned a six-storey building in Borisoglebskii pereulok before the revolution, was granted the use of a 26 square metre room in the same building in the Soviet era (cf. Piretto 2001: 265). During the 1950s up to forty people met in this room adorned with tapestries and rococo furniture on Saturday afternoons (cf. Parisi 2017: 73). The habitués of the literary salon addressed problems and themes that were mainly aesthetical rather than political one (cf. Gadasina 1997: web). Despite the participation of many maiakovtsy (such as Apollon Shukt, Garik Superfin and Vladimir Bukovskii), the atmosphere was very different from that generated around the statue of the futurist poet in Maiakosvkii Square, where inclusivity and open-mindedness were guiding principles and passers-by, without cultural or ideological instruction, were often invited to participate.
At Fride’s, where Moscow’s renowned handcrafted beer was served and codeine was also available, debates tended to be more sophisticated and regular visitors shared similar worldviews (cf. ibid.). Madame Fride’s meetings were not a secret in town; even ‘Molodoi Kommunist’ wrote negatively about them (cf. Parisi 2017: 72).
In the months and years following the end of the Maiakovka gatherings, many similar apartments welcomed non-conformist young people, including the those of Apollon Shukht and the SMOGist Alena Basilova, whose home was unusual in that she shared the small building on Sadovaia-Karetnaia with her mother (the poet Alla Rustaikis) and her great aunt (Alisa Khvas, her maternal grandmother’s sister, with whom she had frequented Maiakovskii Square).
Basilova’s apartment came to be known as the “second Maiakovka” (Maiakovka-2), thanks also to the understanding and empathy of the older women towards Alena’s friends. Most of the talk was about artistic and literary phenomena; Vladimir Bukovskii read his tales which were described by Basilova as not at all bad (cf. Basilova 1997: web).
From the early Fifties, another unique meeting place was Iurii Mamleev’s house: his hut, now long gone, was the venue for meetings of a small intellectual group interested in esoteric subjects like occultism, theosophy (they read Rudolf Steiner) and subjects that were at the time largely excluded from official debates (such as psychiatry) (cf. Possamai 2007: web).
These gatherings were informally called “Iuzhin’s meetings”, from the name of the street where they were held: Iuzhinksii (today Bolshoi Palashevskii) pereulok, 3 (cf. Parisi 2017: 73).
Other apartments in Moscow included that of  Ioffe and Saburov where the two poets were joined by other authors during the 60s (like Mikhail Aizenberg – cf. Caramitti 2010: 25), and above all Il’ia Kabakov’s studio, situated in a garret of a liberty building in Sretenskii bul’var, 6. During the 70s the artist’s studio became a symbol for Russian artistic and literary conceptualism (cf. ibid.: 319).

Federico Iocca
[June 30, 2021]

Translation by Diletta Bacci

Bibliography

• Basilova A, Kak oni smeiut bit’ poėta!, in L. Polikovskaia, “My predchustvie, predtecha…”. Ploshchad’ Maiakovskogo. 1958-1965, Zven’ia, Moskva 1997, http://old.memo.ru/history/diss/books/mayak/part3-14.htm#_VPID_58, online (last accessed: 30/06/2021).
• Caramitti M., Letteratura russa contemporanea: La scrittura come resistenza, Laterza, Bari 2010.
• Gadasina A., “Maiakovka” dala nam vnutrenniuiu svobodu, in L. Polikovskaia, “My predchustvie, predtecha…”. Ploshchad’ Mayakovskogo. 1958-1965, Zven’ia, Moskva 1997, http://old.memo.ru/history/diss/books/mayak/part3-09.htm, online (last accessed: 30/06/2021).
• Parisi V., Guida alla Mosca ribelle, Voland, Roma 2017.
• Piretto G. P., Il radioso avvenire: mitologie culturali sovietiche, Einaudi, Torino 2001.
• Possamai D., Mamleev Jurij Vital´evich, [2007], http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/jurij-vitalevic-mamleev_%28Enciclopedia-Italiana%29/, online (last accessed: 30/06/2021).