“The main impression left is from the city itself” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about the astronomical festival “Lights Out – 2023”, which took place in a city near Moscow.

Chernogolovka near Moscow has always been some kind of mysterious center of attraction for me. And friends lived here, and it was widely known as a center for the production of various drinks, and, of course, it was vaguely known about the scientific component of the city. It’s vague because of the secrecy.

The first scientific and educational astronomy festival “Lights Out – 2023” and a program dedicated to the festival from St. Petersburg socio-cultural organizations: ITMO University and the Center for the Support and Development of Contemporary Art “ZA ART” helped to get to the city.

There were the openings of another space monument from the sculptor Artemy Rodionov, conversations with real cosmonauts, master classes and lectures.

Let’s say, a famous St. Petersburg curator, my good friend Olesya Turkina, gave a talk about space art. I was most attracted by the evening event, during which a huge number of telescopes were displayed in the clearing (it is quite logical that many people here own them), through which everyone looked at the starry sky. I saw Saturn! Clearly, straight with a plate of rings around it. An unforgettable feeling…

But the main impression remained from the city itself, through which we wandered both day and night. With squirrels and hedgehogs jumping and crawling along the streets. It was as if we were immersed in a place from the Strugatsky brothers’ story “Monday Begins on Saturday.”

And the brothers’ literary invention – the NIICHAVO Institute – no longer seemed such a fiction after visiting the Federal Research Center for Problems of Chemical Physics and Medicinal Chemistry, where they develop cancer drugs and materials in altered states, for which explosions are carried out every day.

The mayor of the city, Oleg Egorov, personally entrusted me with pressing the button to raise the equivalent of 1 kg of TNT into the air in the explosion chamber. The earth, I must say, really shook, but we got metal that passed into a different state.

And roe deer wandered through the endless wooded territory of the center, which we fed with apples collected here.

Mayor Egorov, by the way, a local native, spoke about plans for the development of cultural spaces in Chernogolovka. But I think I’ll talk about this next time.