Recently images of provincial Russia made their way through the world media. The tragic occasion was one of the largest hostage dramas in recent history, in which a Caucasian and multinational terror commando – evidently under the command of Chechen warlord Shamil Basaev – had attacked a school in the small North Ossetian town of Beslan in the southern part of Russia. Hundreds of people died in the final exchange of fire. Reports on the situation in and around Beslan that appeared in subsequent days in the naturally critical Moscow press gave the impression that in large stretches of the northern Caucasus people are still living under premodern conditions, in scattered mountain villages with little infrastructure, tyrannized by corrupt police forces and highwaymen who make traveling in the area more than adventurous. This was the same situation that had already described in detail in the classic Russian literature of the first half of the nineteenth century. Such living conditions can hardly be deemed favorable for contemporary creative production at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Although the northern Caucasus has its own special problems and cannot be taken as representative of all Russian provinces, even in this remote region there are art institutions today that are trying to hook up with what is happening in the contemporary art world. These include the Pervaya galereya (First Gallery) in Machackala, Dagestan, which has taken part in the Art Moskva several times and has also mounted a more ethnographically oriented photo exhibition, »People/Faces of Caucasian Nationality,«1 which has toured some larger Russian cities.

Nevertheless, not only in the Caucasus, but in other regions remote from Moscow as well, the cultural currents coming from the provinces have been modest, with the exception of the former capital, St. Petersburg, and some isolated sectors in which Moscow has never played more than a minor role, such as Russian rock music, where even in this age of casting bands cities like Petersburg, and also Omsk, Ufa and Vladivostok take the fore. Politically at any rate, Russia is still, despite its official title of »Russian Federation« an incredibly centralized state. These centralist tendencies have if anything even grown stronger in recent years, in the wake of the »vertical power structure« imposed by President Putin, who himself sits at its apex. Putin’s current proposal to »fight terror« by appointing provincial governors instead of letting people elect them will lead the regions to become even more dependent on Moscow - and this despite the fact that a Soviet-inspired centralism appears in many areas to be more part of the problem than of the solution.

In the fine arts scene as well, Moscow’s dominance cannot be denied; institutions from the Russian provinces can currently be regarded at the most as »also-rans.« At the country’s most important contemporary art fair, the Art Moskva, next to the numerous Moscow galleries and a smaller number from Petersburg, only three galleries from the provinces (Machackala, Novosibirsk and Vladivostok) participated in 2004, a clear indication of the absence of an art market there. This situation only accelerates the tendency for creative talents to turn their backs on their homeland. The concentration of capital and media in Moscow often leaves the provincial cities with no hope of trying their hands at art-related or applied art areas such as PR and advertising.

Nevertheless, a series of positive developments have emerged in certain regions during the past few years. Since the late nineties, branches of Moscow’s State Center for Contemporary Art (GCSI) have been set up in St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaliningrad, and Ekaterinburg, which act independently and in recent years have organized a large number of local exhibitions, lectures, screenings, and publications.2 But these art centers often find themselves alone on the scene: the Kaliningrad GSCI remarks on its homepage that it is the only institution in the region working in the field of »contemporary art.«

Conspicuous in recent years were also the cultural policy activities of the official presidential deputy in the Volga Federal Region (PFO), which prompted enthusiastic articles in the Russian press as well as a notable amount of cultural and arts tourism in the region. The liberal Sergei Kirienko, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in Moscow in 1999 and in his campaign had come out strongly in support of contemporary culture – supported by Moscow gallery owner Marat Gelman – remained active in cultural policy in his new post as well. Among other initiatives, he launched a competition for the »Volga Capital of Culture« 3 along the lines of the European model, intended, as in the EU, to nurture the cultural development of the provincial cities. In 2003, the city of Cheboksary, capital of the Republic of Chuvashia, was chosen, while in 2004 the contest for the evidently increasingly coveted title resulted in a tie between Dmitrovgrad and Izevsk, capital of the Republic of Udmurtiya.

However, some of the more progressive art projects still encounter strong resistance, sometimes even in spite of the support of the Vice President, who, as is well known, is very high up in Putin’s »vertical power structure.« The 2003 video art show »Proekcija« (Projection), in which video installations by established media artists were displayed in a building of the (somewhat sacred) Kremlin of Nizhny Novgorod, triggered protests by local artists against its »immoral videos« and scathing articles in the local press, with polemics reminiscent of Soviet days. A similar situation arose in May 2004 in Novosibirsk, the main difference here being that the art event in question was not backed by official quarters. The »Monstracija« (Monstration) flashmob organized by artists for May 1, with »schizophrenic content« – according to the local newspaper »Vecernij Novosibirsk« – led to the arrest of some participants and to administrative criminal proceedings ending with a 500-rubel (14-euro) fine. »Through their absurd behavior, the students and artists put both themselves and the police in an awkward position« – admonished »Vechernij Novosibirsk« in a moralizing tone. The artists, however, kept their cool and took it upon themselves to assure the »Monstration« a place in history by issuing a postcard series of the happening.

 

Translated by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida

 

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