Undisturbed Russia Photography Festival 2016

Last weekend Mama outsourced finding us somewhere to hang out to Papa, who came up with the photography exhibition translatable as Undisturbed Russia, Pristine Russia, Natural Russia, or (the official tag) Primordial Russia.

Mama was a bit dubious about the last phrasing and even more dubious that we might find such an outing worth the trek into town. However, since she didn’t have the personal fortitude necessary for something as child-pleasing as an indoor play area, and since we have already written about such indisputably fabulous venues such as the Moscow Zoo on the blog, she thought we would give it a whirl.

Partly because the exhibition is in the Central House of Artists. Mama has fond memories of the Central House of Artists. It used to be a place where you could not only nosy round the workspaces of any number of hard at work craftsmen but also turn a corner and unexpectedly trip over an installation of millions of tiny paper gingerbread men. These days it serves as an exhibition space along the lines of Earl’s Court or Olympia in London and has been hosting first a conference of estate agents and then the Russian equivalent of a Crufts for cats the last couple of times Mama has been wandering past. Somehow we didn’t quite make it inside. It was clearly time to remedy this.

Plus, the Central House of Artists is also opposite Gorky Park, in the same building as the New Treatyakov Gallery and in the middle of the sculpture park Muzeon. If we really didn’t like Undisturbed Russia, Mama reasoned, there were numerous options for escape.

As it turned out, she needn’t have worried about my Easily Pleased Big Brother’s happiness with the entertainment. ‘This is much more interesting than I thought it would be,’ was his verdict as soon as it was evident that those parts of Russia that are Undisturbed are covered with photogenic animals, which was very quickly indeed.

What followed was a thousand hours of me and Mama trying to keep up as he bounded from one picture to the next with the clear intention of photographing every single one of the bears, the seals, the bears, the walruses, the ladybirds, the bears, the tigers, the foxes, the squirrels, the bears, the whales, the lizards, the bears, the frogs, the butterflies, the bears, the bears and the bears (there were a lot of bears).

My camera, on the other hand, turned out to be too full of pictures of Papa’s ear to allow me to follow my whimsy in this way and thus I was initially considerably more disgruntled about the whole experience, which, it turns out, was large.

Do not be fooled by the fact that the first few taster pictures are in the foyer next to the cloakroom (Mama was, for a moment), or taken in by that the first display space proper is skirtable in about five minutes if you tow Mama about really determinedly (I was at first). You will pass from there to a massive room, with even more spaces leading off it, and there will be many many lots of photos and quite a few people.

The Central House of Artists, unlike the Tardis, is just as big on the inside as it looks from the outside and the giant exhibition didn’t even begin to fill all its available area. If you get bored (you won’t get bored) you can always have a look round some of the other galleries.

Back in Undisturbed Russia, there’s room for a stage and everything.

We sat down quite hopefully in front of it, but it mostly seemed to be for showing films about how you can remove rubbish from Lake Baikal by doing yoga. So I went back to grumping my way past the glories of nature and my Easily Pleased Big Brother went back to standing earnestly behind his camera in front of a photo of bears.

But then we found the children’s crafting area which, in the best Russian tradition, was full of opportunities to get covered with goop! We bounded happily over and from a choice of clay modelling, sand collage creation and spooning gobbets of paint into frames and smearing it around to make animals, we chose the messiest.

To be fair, the aprons this time were particularly well designed and only Mama ended up with paint in her hair. Despite this, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

After this lengthy interlude, my good mood was quite restored and I was actually able to take an interest in posing cutely in front of all sorts of backdrops, which was how Mama snuck in her quota of landscape appreciation amidst the distractions offered by mammals, reptiles and fish.

Russia, it turns out, is not only very very very very very very very big but also wildly varied in terrain (and fauna), and you can admire some utterly stunning pictures of everything from active volcanoes through trackless forests in all sorts of weathers and seasons over bodies of water both large, small and colourful to the northern lights.

It’s bloody impressive (says Mama) even when you aren’t dealing with shots taken by people who definitely know which way of a camera is up.

Running through it all is the Volga river, which gets a whole room where you can lie and float virtually along it as a film plays on the walls and ceiling around you.

Except we were too busy scoffing croissants and eclairs while Mama revived herself with coffee in one of the pop up cafes, and watching urbanite Muscovites being entranced in the nearby cinema room by how the most exciting thing to happen in your average Russian village is a tragic swan love story ( <spoiler> the male swan gets electrocuted at the end </spoiler> ). There was folk singing, moody fishing shots and farmers leaning on gardening implements sucking cigarettes contemplatively and everything. Mama was delighted.

Basically it’s a great exhibition for anyone who likes large professionally breathtaking nature photography, friendly environmental films and small scale amateur crafting, which is surely everybody. The exhibition runs until 25^th February, so still time to get in there and enjoy.

More Information

The festival’s website.

The Central House of Artist’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about sunsets and why we see the colours- a photographer’s view.

Address: Krimsky Val, 10/14, Moscow, 119049

Opening: Until 25th February 2016, 10 or 11 am to 8 or 9pm.

Admission: Adults: 350 roubles (£3.50), children under 10: free, concessions: 150 roubles (£1.50).

By Metro: Oktabrskaya (orange and brown lines) – turn left, cross over the massive seven million lane highway and head left down the other massive seven million lane highway at right angles. Park Kultury (red line) – turn right, cross over the Moscow river, cross the seven million lane highway. The Central House of Artists is opposite Gorky Park.

By other means: Actually, the trollybus route ‘Б’ stops right outside. This is a circular route, which takes you round the edges of the centre of Moscow and hits a fair number of metro stations on the way. It’s quite a fun way of getting to or from the Central House of Artists.