| Everywhere you find the facade
– the wide, ruler-straight boulevard or prospékt,
[...] The prospékty
are a European idea. They were introduced by Peter the Great in an attempt
to build the ideal Western capital in the midst of a Russian swamp, and
ever since, Russian architects have planned their cities in this way.
When Stalin and Khrushchev decided to modernize Old Moscow and turn that
"heap of wooden shacks" (Bély) into a showcase of Communism
they slashed prospékty through its mesh of winding streets. The
prospékt is the clearest possible symbol of Order, clarity, visibility,
efficiency and – hence – modernity and power. On Névsky, the masses
mill past, bodies touch, cars, trolleys and buses race to and fro, the
atmosphere is hectic, the mob of pedestrians dense even for such huge
sidewalks. This is Civilization, we are made to understand, Culture. Here
the marshland was definitely tamed by the oaken pillars and granite foundations
pounded into it by Peter's slave laborers. The wide river is chained by
flying bridges. [...]
But [...] the quadrangles enclosed by the prospékty, línii and bul'váry are too large to be easily accessible from the street. Locating the house you seek may turn out to be harder than you imagine. Each city block consists of quite a few houses, approached by narrow, crisscrossing alleyways and tiny parks. These are the zádnye dvorý, the back yards. They are as closed, as intimate and disorderly as the prospékty are open, official and formal. The dvor is home-grown and genuinely Russian – originally the word meant simply a farm-yard. "Na dvoré" – "in the yard" – is a way of saying "outdoors". In the dvor the bábushki (grandmothers, old women) sit in the sun on worn benches, the children play, piles of garbage lie about, and random plantings of bushes and weeds grow knee high or are trampled to the root as the case may be. This is home, private, and a stranger strolling past is noted. It's comfortable in the dvor – prósto, but hardly Civilized – kul'túrno It is a closely guarded bit of un-tamed nature. |