“Here you can see medieval maps, as well as carved decorations”

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about what exhibits can be seen at sites dedicated to the history of northern exploration.

A major artistic research project has just opened in Moscow, which is called “Researcher and Artist: Art on Expedition.” There are four sites, and you can’t count how many exhibits there are. Antique objects, works of art, and works of contemporary artists working in the genre of science-art are involved.

In Zaryadye, in the so-called Reserve Embassy, ​​there is a section with contemporary art in the interpretation of the curator of the entire project, my old friend – the vice-rector of Stroganovka Kirill Gavrilin. What to say? Kirill and I don’t have the same artistic tastes at all; I found the modern part of the project a bit boring.

In general, the art project is timed to coincide with the end of the second year of exploration of the East of Russia, which is called the “Great Scientific Expedition” of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Norilsk Nickel company. This is a full-fledged part of a research project.

So far, two venues are open: “The Reserved Embassy” (sorry, I’m even embarrassed, but that’s actually the name of the room), but the retrospective part is located in the upper chambers of the Old English Court.

As Gavrilin said at the opening, it was from the English court that the first Russian expeditions to the Arctic launched in the 16th-17th centuries. Now here you can see medieval maps, a model of one of the oldest settlements of Russian pioneers, as well as carved jewelry and household items made of bone and national clothing of indigenous peoples. Paintings by the first artists depicting the North, maps of the Middle Ages…

Here, by the way, are exhibits provided by my good friend Andrei Kirpichnikov – four medieval geographical maps of the Russian state, including such a rare watercolor “Map of the North and East of Russia by Isaac Maas, 1612”.

And, of course, the artists of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries are interesting, who discovered the Russian Arctic to the whole world: Alexander Borisov, Nikolai Pinegin, Tyko Vylke, the first Nenets artist of the early 20th century. From February 5, part of the exhibition will open in Stroganovka, and from February 13 – in the Darwin Museum.