Hipster Renewal in Vladivostok: Even Trendy British Journals Fawn Over City’s Urban Revival
Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Krasnodar. This is an incomplete list of the most creative Russian cities, according to the culture section of the British publication The Calvert Journal. We're launching a series of reports covering innovative and dynamic regions of our country. Today we're in Vladivostok, where we talk about food made of Far Eastern fern and the new life of Chinese quarters.
Kseniya Kolchina has the details.
Fashion — Vladivostok style. Local clothing designers' sketches show seagulls, a bridge, and everything related to the sea. And instead of the podium is a sand strip that leads to one of the city's main symbols; Tokarevsky lighthouse.
Irina Mudraya: "This is not even a tourist site. Rather, a patriotic one. It's for those who are in love with our city".
Love for Vladivostok is a mandatory requirement for the job. Clothing manufacturing is 100% domestic, and discounts are offered on Tiger Day. The designer boutique, just like many other fashionable places, is located in Millionka. These old city quarters used to be known for their danger, gambling, and smuggling. But then came the local artists, who weaved local legends into their creations and painted old backyards. Old backyards and labyrinths hide the characters of the city's urban legends. Seven concrete bas-reliefs in total are hidden in Millionka's back streets. For example, a Chinese water seller. At the turn of the century, the quarter where it is located was Chinatown, one of the most exotic quarters of Vladivostok.
Vasily Avchenko: "Here, legends are collected not just as ghosts, but also as books".
Vasily Avchenko's books are displayed on the main storefront. One of them is the beautifully-illustrated Vladivostok 3000, a collection of urban legends; he co-authored it with his countryman, Ilya Lagutenko. Vladivostok is often sung in his songs. Stories include sea kale, ginseng, and Eleutherococcus. Primorsk wild herbs and gifts of the sea turn Vladivostok cuisine into a work of art.
One of the restaurants serves fern with scallops, a rather modern dish rather than a classic one. The chef merges forest with the sea to create a unique dish that will combine the best of both the taiga and the ocean.
Another Vladivostok native, Asya Vasiltsova, also decided to combine sea and art. Many years ago there was a dump on the coast. The sea cut tons of waste glass, turning it into a multicolor mosaic, and this is how the beach was created. Asya makes jewelry of these pieces of glass, she says that she works in tandem with the sea. The sea offers shapes and colors, and she frames them in copper and silver.
Asya Vasiltsova: "This was a little urchin, that is, I sawed the skeleton of the sea urchin. It has amazing texture; you wouldn't be able to make it if you tried".
Vladivostok's symbols — seagulls, a lighthouse, the tide, hillocks — are beloved by street artists. For example, Pavel Shugurov teaches creative art lessons. He and his students paint over the gray graffiti-covered concrete walls with tigers and lotus flowers.
Ksenia Kolchina, Alexander Savelyev, Anton Gvozdetsky, Vlada Makarycheva. Vesti Vladivostok.