Chekhov's Gun

  It is too bad I missed this concert at the Forum Palace recently.  Leningrad reformed last year and has revived its raucous rhythms from the late 90s, which bespoke the turbulent nature of Russia during that time.  They hooked up with the Tiger Lilies at one point, collaborating on an album in 2005, but it pretty much flew under the radar screen.  Not everyone's cup of tea, but these guys and gal ( Yuliya Kogan ) sure can jam,  

It's a black day in Moscow when the Bolshoi loses two of its premier dancers, Ivan Vasilev and Natalia Osipova, to the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.  

  .... which brings to mind this fun movie from 1993, Okno v Parizh , that captured the sense of longing for the West during the waning days of the Soviet Union.  Unfortunately, for poor Nicole all these new house guests prove overwhelming and she soon finds herself on the wrong side of the window, hidden by an old wardrobe.  What makes this film special is how Yuri Mamin  plays both sides of the "window."   Mamin found himself on the outside looking in when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and had a hard time financing this film, but his French backers stuck by him and the movie was a big hit in France and at the Berlin Film Festival that year, and was subsequently picked up by Sony Pictures.

Nice to see this classic book in print again, Moi Parizh , a highly impressionistic photo journey through Paris by Ilya Ehrenburg and El Lissitzky.  It was originally published in 1933 and would cost you a small fortune for a first edition.  I love these books as they capture a side of the Russian avant-garde not often seen. 

Here's a classic movie based on a classic novel.  Oleg Yankovsky and Galina Belyayeva in Chekhov's The Shooting Party .  Sorry, you will have to search for subtitles.

Oleg Yankovsky passed away in 2009, but his legacy lives on in film.  We were watching Khrani menya, moy talisman (Keep me, my talisman) the other night, in which a young Yankovsky is part of a love triangle with Tatyana Dubrich and Alexandr Abdulov, as they document the Pushkin Poetry Festival in Boldino, Some marvelous cameos by Bulat Okudzhava and others in the film, which dates from 1986  Yankovsky was one of Russia's favorite actors.  His filmography is mostly known within the country, but he also played in Tarkovsky's Mirror (1974) and Nostalghia (1983).

Judging by the price Ilya Repin's 1875 masterpiece fetched at a Christie's auction this past summer, Russian art is finally getting its due.  Repin is widely regarded as the master of Russian realism in the late 19th century.  He briefly broke with the Peredvizhinki artistic school to paint scenes of Paris, where he studied from 1873-76.  You can certainly see the influence of Manet in this painting.  Here's another example of his Paris Years .  Much of the Russian realism carried with it a strong sense of nationalism.  Repin would return to Russia and nationalist subject matter in such works as Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mahmoud IV , a work that consumed 10 years of his life and was completed in 1891.