Russian Video-Clip

I just got address to news-clip
from "First Baltic Bienniale".
You'll find it HERE!

Me and my paintings flash
on the end-bit of the clip.

Russia

First Baltic Bienniale came and went.
It was held 5.-15.7. in St.Petersburg, Russia,
in big old soviet-style "Central
Governmental Exhibition Hall", called
Manege. It is located right next to
Isaac's Church, in the center of Petersburg.



(Manege is that building on the left, picture taken
from the roof of Isaac's Church).

I showed there eight paintings, two of
them being brand new ones (Travel of
the Innocents, 1&2). Customs went
very smoothly, might be because one of the
organizers of the exhibition was director of
Hermitage.

My russia isn't so good, I know only alphabets
and some words but I had feeling that people
really liked my paintings. People spend time
watching them and photographed them quite a lot.







There is also interesting video-clip from openings
in my youtube-site.

They had also printed really beautiful
catalogue about exhibition. And one day
I was interviewed for Russian tv (Telekanal).
Me and my paintings appeared few seconds
in the news, sadly I don't have yet that news-clip.



Above you can see photo-art of my host,
Sami Hyrskylahti
and below is picture of another finnish
artists', Paula Salmela's performance.
She really did hang in Manege every day,
under that strange hum of air ventilation
machines:





This was my fifth trip to St.Petersburg
and city has developed fast. My first
impression was that on Nevski Prospekt
(main street) you hardly noticed being in
Russia.



However land-slavery still seem to exist:



Even traffic seemed much safer
and more reasonable than before.
I guess people don't want to wreck
their new fine cars:



And there was feeling of safety
also, although I had to be aware of
militia, cause I hadn't registered
my visa:



Drinking tea (especially Pu-ehr) is
one of the main things to spend your
time:



And from cafe's terrace on Nevski you have
good place to study inhabitants of St.Petersburg:





There was also much nightclubbing to be done.
Sami was indeed correct guide to the scene:



However I didn't drink so much.
From the past experiences I know
that hangovers in Russia are not
so nice. And my accommodations being
what it was I really didn't need any
extra excitement:



Days and nights had little difference...







Of course there was 5 million people in
St.Petersburg plus tourists so somedays
I just had to get away from the city.
One day I went to Peterhof, to relax in
tzar's gardens.





There was also some kind of "largest
fountains in the world" or something
which gathered lots of tourists:



On last day I managed finally to visit
Hermitage which was full of tourists.



Anyway I had in Hermitage really deep
art-experience and it is really sad that
battery of my camera went out there...



All in all, it was a work trip
and I was happy to return Finland,
back to my basic stupid life:



At last I have a month and a half VACATION
before I have to start to struggle with
that unemployment-office's career-changing
course... but that is another story!