Victorious Mongolian Ice Sculptor

In the previous post we wrote about the Mongolian ice sculptors competing at Korkeasaari Zoo in the Helsinki archipelago. The winner of the individual competition was announced today, and he is also Mongolian! Lkhagvadorj Dorjsuren won the first prize with his intricately carved work "The Lunch", depicting the competition's maritime and environmentally conscious theme through the shape of a seagull eating garbage - a prosaic subject rendered alarmingly beautiful and calling our attention to the effects of pollution. The jury especially praised the shapes of the waves at the base of the sculpture. The competition will continue next weekend, 9.-10.2.2013.

More photos and video clips: Korkeasaari Zoo media gallery

Mongolian Ice Sculptors in Finland

The Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki, located on an island within the city archipelago, currently celebrates an international ice sculpting festival, Art Meets Ice 2013. Many of the participants are from Mongolia. Above, Bazarsad Bayarsaikhan and Dorjnamil Baatar work on their individual projects in the "Life on the Baltic Sea" competition, and they will also compete against each other and the other participants in teams of two in the tandem competition "My Sea". There's a promotional video on the Korkeasaari Zoo's website.

It will be exciting to see what maritime subjects the Mongolian artists will tackle. As a serendipitous coincidence, a Przewalski's horse at the zoo has foaled during their visit. Przewalski's horse (or Dzungarian horse) is an endangered subspecies of wild horse from the Central Asian steppes. Once it was extinct in Mongolia, but it has been reintroduced into nature reserves in the country. It is considered the last truly wild horse, others (like the Mustangs of North America) being feral varieties of the domesticated horse.

Perhaps the birth of the foal, so laden with symbolism, will inspire the artists even more in this competition? According to the Finnish national broadcasting service YLE, the artists were delighted by the news, and believe that it's a filly, although the zoo has not published any details yet... (video of the furry little foal here) (news in Finnish)

Photo source: Korkeasaari Zoo media gallery

Ben Bilirim

Just have to share this çok güzel klip by Barış Manço: Ben Bilirim from 1975.

Psychedelic/folk rocker, singer and composer Barış Manço was a member of famous 1970's bands such as Moğollar and funder of Kurtalar Ekspres. He played with international artists and exchanged ideas with Turkish and foreign musicians, influencing numerous genres of modern pop and rock music in his homeland. His long hair and big mustache could be considered as a provocation to the conservative establishment, as well as a dedication to tradition...

Portrait of the Artist as Chirayliq (Part 1)

Here are some artistic visions of famous (and rather handsome) painters in the 19th and 20th century.



Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, Armenian: Hovhannes Aivazian (1817 — 1900) Portrait by Alexei Tyranov, 1841.

Born in Feodosiya, Crimea. Studied in Simferopol and St. Petersburg, traveled around the Black Sea and through Europe, worked and exhibited in Rome, Paris, and Constantinople, as well as his hometown, where he also spent his final years. Some of his maritime works can be viewed at Zeno.org



Pyotr Zakharov-Chechenets (1816 — 1846) Self portrait in Chechen costume, 1842.

Russian painter of Chechen origin. Orphaned during the Caucasian War 1819, he was raised by a Cossack family and later adopted by a Russian officer who recognized his artistic talents. In spite of ostracism because of his Chechen background, Zakharov-Chechenets remained proud of his heritage (as seen on his chosen name and his costume) became a successful artist, but died of tuberculosis at a young age.



Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (1848 — 1926) Self-portrait, 1868.

Son of a village priest, grandson of an icon painter. His brother Apollinary also became a painter. Vasnetsov became a friend of Ilya Repin while studying in St. Petersburg and even modeled for him. He is famous for his mythological and fairy-tale motifs, but he was more interested in everyday scenes of simple life in the beginning of his career. He designed uniforms for the Red Army in 1918 and is credited with the invention of the distinctive budenovka hat - directly inspired by the pointy helmets of the ancient bogatyrs (epic heroes) in Vasnetsov's paintings.



Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1856 — 1910) Self-portrait, 1885.

Born in Omsk, studied in St. Petersburg. Symbolist painter inspired by medieval religious art and oriental aesthetics. Particularly famous for his paintings inspired by Mikhail Lermontov's Caucasian romance poem "The Demon".

Part 2 with 20th century artists coming up soon!

Bulat Gilvanov

Bulat Gilvanov is a painter from Tatarstan who works in a variety of styles. Many of his paintings are very stylized, almost surreal depictions of Tatar mythology and folkloristic subjects in gently glowing colours, often clashing faded pastel hues with a powerful indigo blue. You can view these works at the Natasha Akhmerova Gallery or the Aysel Gözübüyük Arthouse.



Gilvanov also paints in a more realistic style, employing the same pearly shades to a different subject: Volga-Bulgar warrior women... Just to make us fall in love completely.



Visit his homepage for more galleries of beautiful and powerful paintings!

Man of the new East

Don't miss this article in the Uzbekistan art magazine San'at:
Lola Paizieva: Man of the new East. Portrait painting in Uzbekistan of the 1920s - 30s.

Unfortunately, the paintings above are not clearly identified in the article. They may be "Uzbek man. Samarkand" by famous Uzbek artist Ural Tansykbaev and "Collective farmer" by Alexander Volkov. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Uzbekistan in the 1930's

The professional photographer Max Penson documented life and ideals in Soviet Turkistan (today's Uzbekistan) that was going through enormous social and economic upheavals in the early 20th century. Penson was born to a poor Jewish family in Belarus, 1893, and escaped pogroms and persecution to Central Asia during the First World War. He worked as an art teacher in Kokand, but his life changed when he managed to obtain a camera in the early 1920's. Between 1920 and 1940 he produced 30,000 photographs of innumerable subjects including education, industrialization, military training, farming, leisure and portraiture. At the Paris World Exhibition in 1937, Penson was awarded the Grand Prix for his portrait of "The Uzbek Madonna", a young woman nursing her child. Sergei Eisenstein praised him for his dedication to his chosen homeland: "There cannot be many masters left who choose a specific terrain for their work, dedicate themselves completely to and make it an intergrated part of their personal destiny." (quoted in Enter)



Penson worked for Central Asia's largest newspaper, Pravda Vostoka, in Tashkent, until Stalin's purges of Jews in the late 1940's pushed him out of his position and into a decade of depression. Penson died in 1959, but his work lives on as a priceless document of a dynamic but also tragic chapter in Central Asian history. All these photographs were selected from the official Max Penson website. I sincerely recommend a visit to the website for much more information and photographs. There is also an interesting topical selection at the Nailya Alexander Gallery.



Students in class.



The sculptor Khaidarov at work on a Lenin bust.

Although I have selected images chiefly of Chirayliq interest, I hope that something of the wide range of Penson's techniques is conveyed to the casual reader. He created images for propagandistic purposes, but he was conscious of the importance of the human element - you may call it imperfection or an element of chance.



A cotton farmer resting.



Russians and Uzbeks celebrating a holiday - with a dombura, or is it a dutar?

While the propagandistic elements may come off as blatant - a bust of Lenin, a militant pose, a brand-new tractor - the human element is much more subtle, yet crucial: a wrinkled eyebrow, a shy smile that does not quite reach the mouth, a bemused gaze, a gesture of tenderness. Penson told his photographer son's editor: “My son is using a flash in his photos very often. Tell him to use his heart instead...” (Quote: Enter)



Portrait of an Uzbek man.



A soldier with field radio equipment.



An Uzbek boy with puppies.



Max Penson himself.

Do NOT miss the gallery section at the official Max Penson site. This is just a tiny selection! It's a must for anyone who is interested in Soviet and Central Asian history, and the art of photography.

News from Slavs & Tatars

Slavs & Tatars is a concept art collective who have been previously featured on Chirayliq on February 21st this year - goodness, how time flies. Now note this in your calendars if you are somewhere in the Brussels area in early October:

Hymns of No Resistance is a performance of cult and classic pop songs adapted to address issues of territorial dispute, language, and geopolitics within greater Eurasia. Chanteuse/actress Berivan Kaya, accompanied by a Kurdish quartet, will perform such songs as She’s Armenian (formerly Michael Shambello’s She’s a Maniac), Stuck in Ossetia with You (adapted from Stealers Wheel’s Stuck in the Middle With You), and Young Kurds (an updated Rod Stewart’s Young Turks), and more. Hymns of No Resistance will open at Brussels’ renowned Kaai Theatre on October 3rd before moving to Moscow and then New York in 2010.

I cannot resist to include another quote from the Kaai Theatre's press release, just because it fits so well with the Chirayliq mission:

Slavs and Tatars wants to cherish the romantic heritage shared by Slavs, Caucasians and Central Asians. According to them, this heritage is not merely social, political, linguistic or aesthetic. There is above all a strong emotional bond. They seek out this bond, and polemics too, with unceasing dedication.

We heartily agree.

Ermek knows what we want

Rudolf Nureyev

Here comes the long awaited post about Rudolf Xämät ulı Nuriev, as his name is written in Tatar. Our mum is a huge fan, so we've grown up watching him dance. Here is one of his many famous performances, a male solo from Swan Lake:



Nureyev was the youngest of four children and the only boy. His family were originally poor Tatar peasants, but his father Hamet had seized the opportunity that came with the revolution, and had become a political education officer in the Soviet Army. When he was stationed in Vladivostok, his wife Farida and her daughters travelled to join him. On the train, somewhere near the Baikal lake in March 1938, Rudolf was born.



When war broke out, Farida and the children were evacuated from Moscow to Ufa in the Urals, and that is where Rudolf grew up. With Hamet away at war, times were hard, and the Nureyevs were very poor. When Rudolf started school, the other children laughed at him because he had no shoes and his coat was a hand-me-down from his older sisters. I remember a much watched video tape with Nureyev on the Dame Edna show, where he explained that the scar on his lip came about when he was a child and was so thin that he looked like a bone, so a dog tried to eat him ...

On New Year’s Eve, 1945, Farida smuggled all her children into a performance of the patriotic ballet Song of the Cranes starring the Leningrad-trained Bashkir ballerina Zaituna Nazretdinova. Rudolf knew at once that he wanted to become a dancer.

He started to take lessons in local folk dances and ballet. When his father returned from the war, he was not at all pleased with his son's "unmanly" interests, but Rudolf had already set his mind to it.

His teachers saw great potential in him, and encouraged him to study in Leningrad. Eventually, while on tour with a local ballet company, Rudolf applied to the Bolshoi ballet company in Moscow and was accepted. But he felt that the Leningrad school would be better (also because it was residential, so he wouldn't have to worry about paying for housing), so instead of returning home to Ufa with his company he headed to Leningrad.



He auditioned at the Leningrad school and was accepted, with the comment "you'll become either a brilliant dancer or a total failure - and most likely a failure". Rudolf was now 17 - a very old age for enrolling at a formal ballet school. He trained extremely hard to catch up, but he also broke school rules and snuck out of the dorms to watch performances at the Kirov ballet. In any case, he obviously did not become a failure.

When he graduated from the school, he was so good that he was offered a soloist contract by both the Kirov and Bolshoi ballets. In the end, and perhaps to no surprise, he chose the Kirov ballet.



He continued to be both brilliant, making his own interpretation of every ballet he danced, and difficult, arguing with choreographers and teachers and walking out on them to train by himself.


Nureyev dancing Le Corsaire with Alla Sizova. From the collection of Sergei Sorokin.


Nureyev with Nadia Nerina. According to the Telegraph, "she impressed and humbled Rudolf Nureyev when he attempted to show off in a performance of Giselle with a series of 16 entrechats six (jumps with rapid changes of feet). Performing Swan Lake a few nights later, with Nureyev watching from the stalls, Nadia Nerina doubled his feat to 32 — an unheard-of achievement for a female dancer — and a furious Nureyev stormed out of the performance."

When the Kirov company went on tour to Paris in 1961, Nureyev caused a lot of trouble for the political agents running the tour, who were probably under a lot of pressure since he as such a great dancer was such a valuable asset to the Soviet Union. He didn't feel like going straight back to the hotel after the performances, but went out on the town with the French dancers and hung out with the locals.

The company was supposed to continue its tour to London, but Nureyev was instead handed a ticket back to Moscow and told he had to go perform at a gala back in the USSR. He was told that he would rejoin the Kirov company in London afterwards, but he didn't really believe that, and feared that he would never again be allowed out of the Soviet Union. So Nureyev defected.



Upon his defection he was immediately offered an engagement with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas.



Soon Nureyev got to meet the dancer Erik Bruhn. They fell in love, and despite a very stormy relationship they remained close until Bruhn's death. Bruhn and Nureyev shared the idea that a male dancer should be allowed to dance just as expressively as a woman, and their style of male dancing would later be taken up by other choreographers.

In 1961 Nureyev also made his first performance in Britain, at a ballet matinée organised by the Royal Ballet's Prima Ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn. He was offered to join the Royal Ballet, and his first performance with the company was partnering Margot Fonteyn in Giselle.



Thus began a lasting partnership and friendship between the two.



Nureyev was a quick learner, and amassed an unusually large and varied repertoire. He danced the old classics in many different variations, and took well over a hundred roles by more than forty choreographers. Many of these roles were created especially for him. His own takes on the classics also led him to make his own productions.

He appeared in cinema, as well, among his roles a racy portrayal of Rudolph Valentino. He also made memorable appearances in the Muppet Show, dancing Swine Lake and being harrassed by Miss Piggy in the sauna ...



Nureyev became ballet director of the Paris Opera in 1983, and brought new life to the Paris Opera by dramatically widening the repertoire, and encouraging the dancers to experience many styles, just like he had.



His love for music led him to conducting, which he could continue with even as his body was wrecked from dancing and his health deteriorated with AIDS.

In March 1992, Rudolf Nureyev, living with advanced AIDS, visited Kazan and appeared as a conductor in front of the audience at Musa Cälil Tatar Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in Kazan. The theater now annually organizes the Rudolf Nureyev Festival in Tatarstan.

Nureyev's last ballet appearance was in 1992, a production of La Bayadère at the Palais Garnier. The French Culture Minister, Jack Lang, presented him with France's highest cultural award, the Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Nureyev died in Paris a few months later, at the age of 54.

...

On the Nureyev Wikipedia entry's discussion page someone cites a slightly dubious source with a broken link. In a Russian E-book called The most famous artists of Russia it supposedly says:
“Nureyev, who made Russian ballet famous, was not Russian. [...] Unlike many artists or scientists of those times Rudolf didn’t keep his origin a secret."
Apparently he adopted Russian stereotypes about Tatars to his own enjoyment, because the quote continues: "He was proud of his ethnicity and he really resembled an impetuous and self-willed descendant of Genghis-Khan, as people tended to call him. His ballet-school mates say that on occasions he would emphasise that his ancestors ruled Russians during 300 years.”

P.S. Mum has a huge photo book about Nureyev, so we can expect more of him later ...

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Note: The photos with no captions have been gathered from various random online fangirl collections.

Slavs & Tatars

I found out about this in the usual roundabout way - from the comments section of Racialicious through art and culture magazine Bidoun's latest issue to the concept art collective Slavs & Tatars. A promising name indeed! However, the Bidoun article kept my expectations low, since the writer chose to recap the usual Occidental stereotypes before grappling the real thing:

Slavs, the linguistic and ethnic group from whence a third of Europeans derive — but with which, somehow, they rarely identify — seems a reminder that Europe was once more Eastern than the average European knows or cares to remember. The land of the Slavs was rough and distant, somewhere near Ukraine or, say, Belarus. There's a reason so many Eastern Europeans call themselves Central Europeans.

Which brings us to the Tatars. For most of us, the term evokes images of faraway lands, thick curly mustaches, maraudings, spearings, beheadings, treacherous Great Games — or, alternately, mayonnaise sauce for fish. Tatars ride horses and wear funny felt hats. In spite of them being Turkic peoples from greater Eurasia, they might as well be Philistines.

Okay - this establishes blatantly who "we" are supposed to be. I've heard about "Tartar" steak before, but the fish sauce was a new one - could it be that I'm not one of "us" after all? It's really difficult to explain to the fish sauce people what it means to grow up with small reminders like this. Luckily, Slavs & Tatars know. But perhaps you have to be "in the know" to appreciate their art - you have to be somebody who loves and cherishes the diversity of Eurasia and who knows that one person's history is another one's pretty lie and a third one's bloody truth.
Thus, no wonder that Chirayliq finds some of its favourite people in the Pantheon of Broken Men and Women: Tatar Socialist revolutionary Sultan Galiyev, Russian-Korean rock star Viktor Tsoi, and Avvakum the protopope... Dedicated to the defeated in history.
Another project, A Thirteenth Month Against Time, is a kind of calendar or diary with useful (or wonderfully useless) articles like "Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun" and catchphrases such as "When in Rome, do as the Romanians". It reveals that Slavs & Tatars are fans of the Kurdish people in particular, in spite of approving a Pan-Turkish people (or because?...).
And Payam Sharifi writes, among other things, about the importance of beautiful eyebrows among Iranians.
Since its foundation in 2000, the group (and solo members) have been exhibiting all over the world, and it has received several awards (the latest was the Grand Prix of the Brno Biennial 2008). Still, the geographic focus has very much been Europe and the US. Maybe that will change in the future?

Mystery: Mishka Babitchef

I'm looking for information about the first Ethiopian pilot, Mishka Babitchef, a descendant of Russian emigrants. According to the website MediaEthiopia, he received his pilot license in the presence of Emperor Haile Selassie in October 1930. He had a sister, W/O Atsede Babitchef, who was married to the nobleman Dejach Nessibu Ze-Ammanuel.
The Russia-Ethiopia connection is of more interest than a mere historical curiosity - since Pushkin's great-grandfather, Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, was said to have been an Ethiopian (altough this is disputed; at any rate, he was from the East of Africa). Anyway, it tickles one's imagination to know that Russian emigrés in turn arrived in Ethiopia and assimilated.
I have very little knowledge of Ethiopian history, and I would be grateful for any further information on the background of these interesting persons. Google is not very helpful at this point - the spellings of the names only occur on MediaEthiopia's site. The whole thing is complicated by the fact that there's a contemporary Russian actor with the name Михаил Бабичев... Perhaps there are other spellings that are in use. I would also like to know more about the Japanese artist Fumio Mizuno (水野富美夫, 1917-1994), who lived in Ethiopia for 25 years and painted beautiful portraits of women. (some photos from an exhibition in Japan 2005)
If anyone knows where to search, or what to look for, I would be grateful for a tip.

Dashi Namdakov

Dashi Namdakov is a Buryat artist. Primarily a sculptor, he is also a skilled graphic artist, and has worked as production designer for the Genghis Khan movie Mongol. (See his homepage, Dashi-Art, for numerous examples of his powerful and undulating mythological figures.)

"My Grandpa was a very gifted story-teller. He knew a lot of legends and stories about Buryats. And I remember them with my bones, inwardly. This feeling is very strong and more on subconscious level. I would like to understand Buryat and Buddhist tradition rationally, yet, I believe, something within me knows it better than I do. My teacher at the Art School was Lev Golovnitsky, a very fine and good Russian sculptor. And he helped me to appreciate and understand the art of sculpture and world tradition. And I am a student of Michelangelo and Bourdelle, Bruegel and Old Japanese art. And I am also myself." (artsiberia.org)