Thursday, May 30, 2013

Each to their own

The New York Times has a fascinating article about a man who, having bought an apartment in St Petersburg, decided to decorate as it would have been done by a high level party official in the early thirties, though judging by the picture, in a slightly better taste.

Of course, as Mr Sergei Bobovnikov appreciates, one aspect will be missing. He will not be lying awake at night, listening to the few cars driving at high speed through the city, knowing who was in them; waiting to hear whether the lift stopped at his floor; and hearing that sudden ringing or knocking at dawn. For that is what happened to many of his predecessors in that flat.
Various Stalin-era officials did, in fact, call this building home, if not for long. One was Sergei Kirov, the prominent Bolshevik leader whose 1934 assassination marked the beginning of Stalin’s Great Purge, in which more than a million people were imprisoned or executed. Many other residents died during another wave of mass arrests known as the Leningrad Case of 1949.
Mr Bobvnikov worked long and hard and spent a considerable amount of money to find the right fittings and decorations and to create the right atmosphere. People find it interesting, according to him, but would not like to live there. However, if his secondary aim of stimulating a discussion about the period in question, much good may come of the project.

9 comments:

  1. Thanks for that link, very interesting.

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  2. Maybe he should have "decorated" it like a cell in the Gulag; maybe that would help evoke the period best. Might not, however, get the interest of the the New York Times.

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    1. Wouldn't have that fetching green either.

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    2. Would have saved on food, too. BTW, I wrote piece on my blog that discusses at some lengths immigration issues in the UK, including the EDL. Let me know if I made a total fool of myself in my post at http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-right-of-national-defense.html

      All the best, and I am a regular reader.

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    3. Thanks for letting me know, DiploMad and I am glad you are a regular reader. I have fallen behind a bit with my blog reading and must get back into a routine. Yours is always high on the list. I shall read the one you mention and comment. (If there is any need for comment, that is.)

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  3. The Russian gentleman's choice of decor would seem to reflect a state of mind not far from the "Ostalgie" which some East Germans feel for the "good old days" of the anti-fascist wall. I gather that some of the branded products from communist times are being made again.

    Come to think of it, I know several English comrades from the trade union movement who used to get jolly holidays in the people's paradise. They were pretty useful eurosceptics too.

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    1. Not very useful eurosceptics, as you may recall. In fact, their presence in the camp put a good many voters off. I suspect their Ostalgie is stronger than that of the Germans.

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  4. A minor miracle-something from the NYT which is not utterly boring. Thanks for that.

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  5. Above post was by renminbi

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