IMMIGRANT'S APARTMENT 80 SQ.M. IN MOSCOW ON NOVEPESCHANOY STREET

Designers Olga Sedova and Prokhor Mashukov designed their own apartment in Moscow, following the legend of a Russian emigrant who moved to Paris at the beginning of the 20th century.

There is a whole set of clichés about Russia, even if they are banal. We ourselves came up with a story that this apartment is located in Paris, a young rake lives in it, a third-generation descendant of a Russian emigrant. His grandfather moved to Paris at the beginning of the 20th century and settled in a classic French apartment with high ceilings, stucco, a fireplace and herringbone oak parquet.

He brought with him a portrait of Nicholas II, family icons, an old mirror, a bookcase and a bed. The current tenant, although he has never been to Russia, tried to create his own idea of ​​it through the prism of irony: he made palace chandeliers from wire and vintage crystal, depicted ballerinas on the walls of one of the rooms against the backdrop of the scenery of Diaghilev's Russian Seasons, and busts of Lenin bought at a flea market and made tables out of them.”

In fact, the apartment is located in Moscow, and designers Olga Sedova and Prokhor Mashukov live in it with their two sons of school age.

Right from the threshold, we see tables with a base made of busts of Lenin, reminiscent of Christmas decorations. Prokhor made them with his own hands. When the workshop of Marat Gelman was closing, he took two busts of the leader from there - one from the 1930s, the other from 1972. The difference in the age of the busts of Lenin is visible - their faces are slightly different. The “senior” had an ear and a nose chipped off, I just sculpted them. Then we covered them with chrome, colored varnish and screwed them to the tops of the countertops.

We also made a “palace” lamp ourselves - we asked a familiar craftsman to weld a frame from a simple aluminum wire, and took crystal droplets from a vintage chandelier found in a garbage dump while relaxing in Slovenian Piran. From there, the mannequin, which found its place in the bedroom. “We saw this mannequin at one of the antique ruins - Prokhor had long wanted one.

We bought it and realized that it would be difficult to load it onto the plane. At the border, they took away the stick on which he stood, and then we replaced it with a mop handle. Olga bought a jacket on a mannequin at a flea market in Paris - it was originally sewn for the role of a page in one of the performances of the Grand Opera, and a tie - part of a clergyman's attire - was found at the Vernissage in Izmailovo.

Next to the mannequin is a bright table made according to the sketches of the owners - colored plaster balls were planted on the armature and filled with liquid plastic. We wanted to dilute the classic structure of our apartment with something fun. Here, on the wall of aged mirrors, the ghost of Voltaire settled. Sculptor Tatyana Antoshina was making it for the exhibition, and when the plastic was poured, something went wrong - Voltaire did not take the desired shape, straightened up - and I saw him in the studio and immediately realized that I would not leave without him. The bust of Catherine the Great was bought at some antique market, but its location on the bedside table has no historical connotation, the owners say that this is an accident.