Rublevka
2012-2013
(c) Multimedia Art Museum Moscow
Rublevka - is an informal name. The area to the west from Moscow, stretched for 25 km along the Rublevo-Uspenskoye highway and the Moscow River.
This was the road of Russian tsars from the 16th century. Later the princes' estates appeared there. In Soviet times they built there dachas for senior government officials, scientific and cultural elite. In the post-Soviet times the land of this area was privatized by oligarchs, politicians, bureaucrats and stars of show-business. Now there is the residence of Russian President.
Gentlemen and servants, luxury and desolation, jeeps and bikes, gold and "Kalashnikov" "Barvikha Luxury" and roadside. The series is built on a system of oppositions that are well balanced. And it is dedicated to the main problem of modern society - threatening gap between the very rich and incredibly poor. And both are the victims of consumer civilization, with its sequence of mobils, standard houses and statues-simulacra. The best ecology, security and the highest price for land in Russia. So today there is a bunch of myths connected with Rublevka. Some tell that living here means being successful, others treat it as vicious taste.
Rublevka is a story not about a special place, but about Russia in general. And this is symbolic because Rublevka is a national dimension that signifies the robbery spirit of the 1990s and 2000s.
This is research for a well-known, many times discussed texture. Focus on unique eclectic of this place, searching for absurd, ridiculous and strange things. The classic reporters techniques such as shooting from a very short distance, the use of wide angle and flash - give the author an opportunity to show someone else's reality as if we were directly involved in it.
Mikhail Sidlin, 2013