Ogonyok Printing Plant: Survey on June 18, 2013

After seeing some alarming photos, on June 18 I went to see for myself what is going at Lissitky’s Ogonyok Printing Plant. Construction work at the Lumiere residential building is paused. Ogonyok is covered in the notorious green mesh to cover from curious eyes what is going on but you can still see that “restoration” work is well underway. Plans for the restoration project has not been shown to the public, and approval for commencing any kind of work is absent. But as I learned yesterday, they plan to finish by January 2014.

I happened to be there when some people in fancy shirts and pants were leaving the Ogonyok territory. Usually I’d wait to go and photograph when these kind of people leave the area, but I thought, THEY are the ones who are illegally conducting work, I just want to take some pictures of a landmark building, by Lissitzky! So I approached the main gate and took a few photos. One of the men in the fancy shirts got curious what I was photographing and asked, “Hey, are you photographing my name there?” (there was a sign that said “Pardon for the inconvenience… etc etc” with two names designated as ответственный (accountable/responsible), customer: Selvich Sergei Andreevich and contractor: Rodin Aleksandr Ivanovich. So it was either Aleksandr or Sergei that spoke with me. Our conversation went on as follows (a translation):

ME: “No, I’m photographing the building behind the sign.”
HIM: “Oh, I thought you might want to talk to me, that’s my name there. Why are you photographing the building?”
ME: “I work in the field of architecture.”
HIM: “Are you from the Department of Culture?”
ME: (Department of Culture? My response to that was to giggle.) “No, I’m just interested in photographing historical buildings in Moscow”
HIM: “Why are you photographing the building in this condition? You should wait till we get it all fixed up.”
ME: “Oh, when is it going to be done?”
HIM: “In January.”
ME: “Oh I see. After the restoration will be done…” (I tried to make my pronunciation of the word “restoration” sound as sarcastic as possible)
HIM: (jokingly, to two guys standing nearby, from the Ogonyok territory, either workers or security) “Don’t bother the girl, boys.”

Then he drove off and the two guys continued the conversation:

THEM: “Really, why are you photographing the building in this condition? Like a before and after, yeah?” (said in a half laughing tone)
ME: “Haha. Yeah, before when it’s a historical landmark, and after when it is nothing. Right.”

And I continued taking photos, and they disappeared behind the gate, either not understanding my answer, or annoyed by it.

MORE photos HERE.