0:00:08 > 0:00:12Inside lot 36 of an industrial estate on the outskirts of Moscow
0:00:12 > 0:00:18lie the fragments of one of the most spectacular pieces of 20th-century Russian art.
0:00:27 > 0:00:33It once stood astride the entrance to the Russian Pavilion at the 1937 World Fair...
0:00:43 > 0:00:48Crafted by the same engineers who built Soviet warplanes...
0:00:53 > 0:00:5620 metres high, a worker and a woman,
0:00:56 > 0:00:58holding aloft the hammer and sickle.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04A Soviet shout of defiance,
0:01:04 > 0:01:06aimed at the capitalist West.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12Communism is healthy. Communism works.
0:01:15 > 0:01:22Throughout the 20th century, Russia's leaders used art like this to spread their political message.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26They were acutely conscious of the power of images.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30But during the years of Soviet rule it was also extremely dangerous
0:01:30 > 0:01:35to be an artist - you could be punished, even eliminated, for making the wrong kind of work.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39Works of art weren't judged merely as things of beauty.
0:01:39 > 0:01:41They were far more important than that.
0:01:41 > 0:01:46They were the building blocks of an entirely new kind of society.
0:02:07 > 0:02:091917. Lenin and the Bolsheviks
0:02:09 > 0:02:13seize power, as revolution erupts in Russia.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19It shook the world and spawned a thousand fictions.
0:02:19 > 0:02:26Sergei Eisenstein restaged the uprising in his epic film October.
0:02:29 > 0:02:34This was art spreading the word of a new, radical creed - Communism.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43With St Petersburg tainted by its imperial past,
0:02:43 > 0:02:48a new capital was chosen for the Revolutionary State - Moscow.
0:02:51 > 0:02:56With all of Russia drunk on change, it must really have seemed that anything were possible.
0:02:56 > 0:03:01And Russia's artists, so often at the margins of society, now found themselves projected
0:03:01 > 0:03:06to its very centre as the Bolsheviks sought out an art
0:03:06 > 0:03:09that would be radical and forward thinking as their politics.
0:03:09 > 0:03:15Lenin even included artists on his list of the heroes of the Revolution.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18That was a rallying cry and Russians painters, sculptors
0:03:18 > 0:03:23and architects responded with a great outpouring of creative energy.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31It was driven by a group of artists who called themselves the Constructivists.
0:03:36 > 0:03:39The voice of the movement
0:03:39 > 0:03:43was the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46But its dominant figure was his best friend,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49the artist Alexander Rodchenko.
0:03:51 > 0:03:56His early paintings still pulse with the energies of an extraordinary time.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08In a sense, Constructivism was built on a whole series of No-s.
0:04:08 > 0:04:13No to beauty, no to artistic mystery no to the idea of creativity, even.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16Definitely no to the idea of art you can buy and sell.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18And he created this very simple language of form -
0:04:18 > 0:04:22it almost reminds me of the diagram a convict might put on his wall
0:04:22 > 0:04:25to count off the days to his release, except here,
0:04:25 > 0:04:30Rodchenko is counting the days until the Revolution would truly come to pass, and alter the world forever.
0:04:30 > 0:04:35He pushes art also away from the language of representation,
0:04:35 > 0:04:39towards the language of mathematics.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43This picture could almost be a Venn diagram... or of electrical engineering.
0:04:43 > 0:04:49It looks like it could be a diagram of some electrical circuitry.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54He said, "We want to be constructors, engineers, not creators."
0:04:54 > 0:04:59It's anti-mystical, anti-mystery, so even when he draws a cross,
0:04:59 > 0:05:05you know very well that Rodchenko is not alluding to Christianity - he abhorred religion.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09He said, "What could be more stupid than a church."
0:05:09 > 0:05:15And over here, perhaps the oddest, this almost nothing of a pictorial experiment.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19This very, very strange... little dot painting.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23Damien Hirst eat your heart out. But what is he trying to tell us here?
0:05:23 > 0:05:30I think, again, he is conceiving the canvas rather as if it were a society that could be remodelled
0:05:30 > 0:05:33and that perhaps these represent conglomerations of individuals
0:05:33 > 0:05:36that can be altered and moulded.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40And to me, again, it's as if he's pushing the language of painting
0:05:40 > 0:05:44towards the language of social engineering.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47Which, of course, is what Communism would become.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58And the Constructivists would soon leave the art gallery behind.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02Just four years after the Revolution, Rodchenko
0:06:02 > 0:06:05took his most radical step.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09He announced the death of painting itself.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14The future lay in posters, pamphlets, propaganda.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25Agit-prop spread across Russia on special agit-trains.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30You can still sense their idealism,
0:06:30 > 0:06:34in this beautiful poster designed to encourage workers to read.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37Mayakovsky did the words, Rodchenko the images.
0:06:37 > 0:06:42And the girl was Mayakovsky's lover, Lilya Brik.
0:06:43 > 0:06:45This vibrant new graphic language
0:06:45 > 0:06:50turned the city into a carnival of colourful, sharp-edged forms.
0:06:52 > 0:06:59Today, just a few examples survive like this for the state shop, Mossel'prom.
0:07:02 > 0:07:08But I'd been told there was a place where you could still experience this lost world.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12A great archive, rarely visited, in the back office
0:07:12 > 0:07:14of Moscow's Mayakovsky Museum.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27Somehow, it didn't seem like the kind of place you'd want to keep
0:07:27 > 0:07:29a collection worth millions.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36My guide was a rather inscrutable lady called Eugenie.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42So is this where you keep your priceless Rodchenko?
0:07:42 > 0:07:44- Oh, Wow.- Yes, of course.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48It took Eugenie about five seconds to puncture my scepticism.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51So what have we got? Oh, wow.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53Rodchenko's Constructivist suit.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56Rodchenko montage...
0:07:56 > 0:07:59This exquisite paper cut-out. That is beautiful.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Photomontage.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04Financial inspector.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07The earliest experiments in photomontage.
0:08:07 > 0:08:09Is it OK if I put this up here with the others?
0:08:09 > 0:08:11Of course.
0:08:11 > 0:08:17- Making my own little museum here. Montage.- Oh, wow. That's fantastic.
0:08:17 > 0:08:18For Mayakovsky poetry.
0:08:18 > 0:08:20And that was just for starters.
0:08:20 > 0:08:25They worked together on some state advertising, like posters?
0:08:25 > 0:08:27Like poster, of course. You can see.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29Mayakovsky and Rodchenko worked
0:08:29 > 0:08:34in advertisement. And you can see.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38I just can't believe you have this stuff in drawers here.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40Such interesting things.
0:08:40 > 0:08:41That's a priceless object so be careful.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46- That's one of the famous posters for bread.- Yes.
0:08:46 > 0:08:48That's tremendous.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50What else have you got here?
0:08:50 > 0:08:52If you want I can show.
0:08:52 > 0:08:54- Could you have a look?- Two minutes.
0:08:54 > 0:08:55Two minutes. Yes.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58Yeah, absolutely, I've got all the time in the world that's very kind.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01- Wait here.- I will wait.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05No, no, no.
0:09:05 > 0:09:06You're back. Wow.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10With an armful, a cornucopia!
0:09:10 > 0:09:12Oh, how fantastic.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16I much prefer seeing this kind of work in the chaos
0:09:16 > 0:09:20of an archive because its not all been sanitised by an exhibition.
0:09:20 > 0:09:22Oh, isn't that fantastic?!
0:09:22 > 0:09:26This is a very famous one very beautiful.
0:09:26 > 0:09:28Now what's this is beautiful.
0:09:28 > 0:09:30Advertisement of cigarettes.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32I love this just... DANG!
0:09:32 > 0:09:36Exclamation mark. Smoke cigarettes!
0:09:36 > 0:09:40If you look here there is a really nice little symbol of the closeness
0:09:40 > 0:09:44of their partnership - they put, not a signature - very important,
0:09:44 > 0:09:45it's an industrial stamp.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49Mayakovsky/Rodchenko. Isn't that great?
0:09:49 > 0:09:50Is this watches?
0:09:50 > 0:09:55- Yes, yes.- It's like opening... literally we are opening the Pandora's box of your archive.
0:09:55 > 0:10:00But you can feel they were opening the Pandora's box of this new world
0:10:00 > 0:10:04of cultural possibilities, where suddenly to design
0:10:04 > 0:10:06a humble watch advertisement, that was far more worthwhile
0:10:06 > 0:10:12than what Cezanne had been doing when he painted the Mont Sainte Victoire 20 years earlier.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15This was real art, because it was art for everybody.
0:10:15 > 0:10:17Of course.
0:10:17 > 0:10:23Look at that, look at this frowny face and the smiley face - Communist biscuits.
0:10:23 > 0:10:25I love this graphic language - this...
0:10:25 > 0:10:30Neville Brody obviously took all this for The Face - still kind of familiar to us now,
0:10:30 > 0:10:35but then that was from nowhere, this was just totally new to use words like this.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39And that's one of the paradoxes that Rodchenko and Mayakovsky
0:10:39 > 0:10:43give to the West - the visual language of capitalism!
0:10:43 > 0:10:46Because they're inventing advertising - this becomes...
0:10:46 > 0:10:50the origins of the McDonald's logo among other things lies there.
0:10:50 > 0:10:55We keep going round in these revolutionary circles. Oh, wow!
0:10:55 > 0:10:57Such simplicity of design.
0:10:57 > 0:11:02- One rouble.- I want that made into a T-shirt - what do you think?
0:11:02 > 0:11:04One rouble, not going to get you far in modern Russia.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07SHE LAUGHS
0:11:07 > 0:11:11Listen, it's been fantastic - thank you so much. You've completely...
0:11:11 > 0:11:15My brain is pullulating with revolutionary ideas.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18Let's take to the streets and forge a new world.
0:11:18 > 0:11:22Come with me, Eugenie. ..We're going, we're going to leave you.
0:11:33 > 0:11:38A new society also needed a radical new architecture.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42And the Constructivists competed with each other to invent it.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48The most daring of these experiments
0:11:48 > 0:11:52was Vladimir Tatlin's monument to the 3rd International.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56A giant revolving tower housing offices for the party.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04Lenin didn't like it, so it never made it past the model stage.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07But some great structures did.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14This is a radio tower.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26For me, it's the forgotten masterpiece of the Constructivist era.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40It was designed by an engineer called Vladimir Shukhov in 1922.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57Hardly anyone comes here any more.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04But I had to make the pilgrimage, even though I do hate heights.
0:13:11 > 0:13:16Hand-cranked technology. I think the guy is winching us up manually.
0:13:27 > 0:13:33This is one of the great monuments of the Constructivist post-Revolutionary period.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38Shukhov is a really interesting character.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42He was somebody from a much earlier generation.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45Russian revolutionaries cottoned on to him - got him to build things.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49Lenin got him to build this tower to broadcast the propaganda of the Soviet state.
0:13:49 > 0:13:54But he himself was a political conservative who saw in the Revolution primarily
0:13:54 > 0:14:01an opportunity to build some of these designs that had been seething around in his head.
0:14:03 > 0:14:09He's the first industrial designer to apply the principles of non-Euclidean geometry
0:14:09 > 0:14:13to tensile steel structures and he designed
0:14:13 > 0:14:17these extraordinary hyperboloid, as they are known, structures.
0:14:17 > 0:14:22This amazing shape. Its kind of the direct ancestor of a building like the Gherkin in London.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38It's a long way up.
0:14:38 > 0:14:44What I love about this is precisely the fact it hasn't been "heritaged".
0:14:44 > 0:14:49Look, it's still rusty - this is probably the original cabin
0:14:49 > 0:14:54in which Lenin came up to inspect his great new radio tower!
0:14:54 > 0:14:58It's raw around the edges and its still a working tower today.
0:14:58 > 0:14:59I just think it's...
0:15:01 > 0:15:03Ah, vertigo...!
0:15:03 > 0:15:06It is absolutely fantastic.
0:15:06 > 0:15:13This is far more exciting, far more the real spirit of that early Soviet moment
0:15:13 > 0:15:16than Tatlin's never-constructed tower.
0:15:16 > 0:15:22This is the real Tatlin tower, and it's by Shukhov, and it works. It's still broadcasting today.
0:15:29 > 0:15:34And so the word according to Lenin was transmitted via the radio waves,
0:15:34 > 0:15:37reaching across the vast Russian hinterland.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45And that was just the beginning.
0:15:45 > 0:15:50What if their message could be broadcast by moving pictures?
0:15:50 > 0:15:54For Lenin, cinema was the revolutionary art-form.
0:15:55 > 0:16:00And so a home-grown film industry was born.
0:16:05 > 0:16:10Welcome to the movie-set version of old Moscow - a backlot
0:16:10 > 0:16:14of Communism's very first film studio - Mosfilm.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21Hollywood, but with a Soviet twist.
0:16:23 > 0:16:28In the fantasy world of the film set you could create a perfectly edited version of the birth
0:16:28 > 0:16:33of the Communist state, an origin myth in which there is no such thing
0:16:33 > 0:16:38as a good aristocrat or a kind Cossack and every member of the working class
0:16:38 > 0:16:42is an heroic proletarian engaged in a struggle for freedom.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45This was really a Communist version of the Bible's book of Genesis,
0:16:45 > 0:16:49a story in which, again and again,
0:16:49 > 0:16:55the forces of proletarian good triumph over Tsarist darkness.
0:16:55 > 0:17:00Now Karl Marx had famously said that religion was the opium of the people
0:17:00 > 0:17:04but what was this, if not another form of religion?
0:17:04 > 0:17:11They might've got rid of the Church, but they'd replaced it with something equally beguiling - the cinema.
0:17:14 > 0:17:20This is the Soviet Gospel, through the lens of Sergei Eisenstein.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24His film October gave Russians the authorised version of their Revolution.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31Eisenstein was a great manipulator,
0:17:31 > 0:17:37who used deeply emotive jump-cut editing to fire his message home.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40Image follows image, like icon painting,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44but at 24 frames per second.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52But by the time October was finished, in 1927,
0:17:52 > 0:17:56the Communist experiment itself was beginning to lose its lustre.
0:17:59 > 0:18:04When Lenin died, the country was in economic and social meltdown.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09Into the chaos stepped Josef Stalin.
0:18:13 > 0:18:19Stalin wanted to fast-forward Russia into modernity.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23Despite the Revolution it remained an almost feudal society,
0:18:23 > 0:18:26with a huge peasant population.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33Stalin's solution was a series of brutal Five-Year Plans.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38Millions were press-ganged into his new factories.
0:18:41 > 0:18:47And forced to live like termites in vast communal blocks.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52Those who stayed on the land were uprooted
0:18:52 > 0:18:54to industrial-scale collective farms.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00If they refused to leave their homes,
0:19:00 > 0:19:03they were machine-gunned or starved to death.
0:19:05 > 0:19:08At least five million people died.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19Artists too were being forced to conform,
0:19:19 > 0:19:23their revolutionary energy snuffed out.
0:19:32 > 0:19:37'And Rodchenko's great friend and collaborator Mayakovsky was one of the first victims.'
0:19:46 > 0:19:48This barely furnished room
0:19:48 > 0:19:53is the place where Mayakovsky chose to end his life.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55He shot himself,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58shot himself dead sitting at this chair.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06His last years had been deeply troubled - he'd written
0:20:06 > 0:20:08highly critical satires of Soviet bureaucracy.
0:20:08 > 0:20:13He'd been denounced by the Russian Proletarian Writers' Association.
0:20:13 > 0:20:18Everyone had abandoned him - even his long-time lover Lilya Brik,
0:20:18 > 0:20:24who'd long ago modelled for that girl advertising books, for that beautiful Rodchenko poster.
0:20:24 > 0:20:29The story is even she was denouncing him to Stalin's secret police.
0:20:29 > 0:20:34Mayakovsky, like all of the early great revolutionaries, was a fantastic eccentric.
0:20:34 > 0:20:38In those early days, everyone had their own idea of the Revolution.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42But that precisely was what was going to be outlawed from now on.
0:20:42 > 0:20:49That individual voice had to be suppressed in the expression of collectively enforced optimism.
0:20:49 > 0:20:55Everyone from now on had to be super-positive about everything in the new Soviet regime.
0:20:55 > 0:21:01The death of Mayakovsky was a real watershed in the history of the Russian avant-garde.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08Stalin wanted art that depicted Russia as a fertile,
0:21:08 > 0:21:14pastoral idyll where healthy, happy peasants tilled the land.
0:21:17 > 0:21:23The name given to this state-approved style was Socialist Realism.
0:21:26 > 0:21:31And the most powerful examples are to be found deep beneath the streets of Moscow...
0:21:36 > 0:21:41..where a series of extraordinary time capsules take you right through the Stalin years.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49My whirlwind tour of the metro system has to begin here
0:21:49 > 0:21:56at Revolution Square - it's one of the earliest stations, and it's one of the most spectacular,
0:21:56 > 0:22:01because here we've got the language of Renaissance Italian tomb art,
0:22:01 > 0:22:03think Michelangelo's Medici chapels,
0:22:03 > 0:22:07applied to a Moscow Communist situation.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11And what we've got essentially is a kind of Communist typology -
0:22:11 > 0:22:17these are the sorts of people that Stalin and the party want in their society.
0:22:17 > 0:22:22It's a kind of roll-call of desirables - the intrepid young sailor,
0:22:22 > 0:22:25the determined young airwoman,
0:22:25 > 0:22:27a lot of military types.
0:22:27 > 0:22:32Here's a very important figure, the Stakhanovite miner.
0:22:32 > 0:22:38Stakhanov was this heroic worker who hewed vast amounts of coal
0:22:38 > 0:22:41on one particular night, and the feat became legendary.
0:22:41 > 0:22:46They wanted legions of these Stakhanovs to turn Russia into an industrial powerhouse
0:22:46 > 0:22:51and to fuel revolution, to push society on to a higher lever.
0:22:51 > 0:22:55On this side, we've got, as it were, his intellectual counterpart -
0:22:55 > 0:22:59the engineer, the designer, the thinker - probably inspired by Rodin's The Thinker.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03There are a lot of these references to classical academic art
0:23:03 > 0:23:05in this phase of Socialist Realism.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12And over here, we've got - very important - we've got agriculture.
0:23:12 > 0:23:18The contented peasant, and here's metaphorically or actually his wife.
0:23:22 > 0:23:27These are the people you are supposed to be. These are the shoes you've got to fill
0:23:27 > 0:23:30if you want to be part of Stalin's Russia.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41Eventually the idea, I think, is that all of these figures will be running off the trains
0:23:41 > 0:23:47and going up the stairs, but you have to think about what's missing from this pantheon of people,
0:23:47 > 0:23:52and its of course, it's the creative melancholic,
0:23:52 > 0:23:56the dissident, the poet, that great Russian figure
0:23:56 > 0:24:00who has driven so much of Russian culture over the centuries.
0:24:00 > 0:24:06That figure is absent because of course he doesn't fit the pattern, he doesn't fit the mould.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12And people were disappearing for real.
0:24:12 > 0:24:18No-one was above suspicion, not even loyal members of the party.
0:24:24 > 0:24:30Stalin's police arrested and killed some 700,000 "undesirables"
0:24:30 > 0:24:33in two years of terror.
0:24:35 > 0:24:37Many more disappeared in the night.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44Altogether, 30 million would be sent to a network of prison camps
0:24:44 > 0:24:47known simply as the gulag.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53But a threat from outside would briefly unite this troubled nation.
0:24:59 > 0:25:04In 1939, the Second World War broke out.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09Two years later, Hitler began his great assault on Russia
0:25:12 > 0:25:16and as bombs dropped on Moscow, it could have been the end for Stalin.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26But it turned out to be his finest hour.
0:25:30 > 0:25:36I'd like you to try and imagine it's the 7th of November 1941.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40It's the height of the siege of Moscow - Hitler's army is encamped
0:25:40 > 0:25:44outside the city, and instead of commuters getting off these trains,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47you've got a very different scene.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53Stalin is holding a rally - it's to celebrate the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution
0:25:53 > 0:25:59and in the centre of this hall they erect a great statue of Lenin on a podium
0:25:59 > 0:26:03and at the end of the meal, Stalin addresses all his generals,
0:26:03 > 0:26:10and he says, "We, the Soviets, we must stand strong against the Nazis - we will triumph."
0:26:14 > 0:26:17Now, what's remarkable about the decorations in Mayakovsky station
0:26:17 > 0:26:21is that they were created three years before, in 1938,
0:26:21 > 0:26:26before the war even broke out, and yet you sense that Deyneka, the artist responsible,
0:26:26 > 0:26:31felt very strongly that war was in the air, because he chose as his subject the Soviet skies.
0:26:31 > 0:26:36But these are skies through which planes are flying in formation
0:26:36 > 0:26:42releasing parachutists - there's very much a sense of Russia gearing up for war.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45They're very, very beautiful, full of a kind of energy
0:26:45 > 0:26:50and sense of threat and I wonder if it isn't a case of adversity
0:26:50 > 0:26:56even under such terrible a tyrant as Stalin, sparking a considerable artist
0:26:56 > 0:27:00into a truly great piece of work.
0:27:22 > 0:27:28They famously called the underground system here in Moscow the "people's palaces"
0:27:28 > 0:27:31but I can't help thinking of them more like the "people's churches".
0:27:31 > 0:27:37And here - what this makes me think of very much are the mosaics
0:27:37 > 0:27:42in the dome of a cathedral, except of course, here we are worshipping
0:27:42 > 0:27:45at the altar of Soviet military might.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49But there is also something sort of semi-religious about the iconography
0:27:49 > 0:27:55because what are these planes and parachutists but Soviet angels, doing battle
0:27:55 > 0:27:58to save the Communist state?
0:27:58 > 0:28:03I particularly love this image of the heroic parachutist
0:28:03 > 0:28:07coming down towards us as if through a hole in the ceiling.
0:28:07 > 0:28:12And his been depicted at the very moment when he pulls his rip-cord
0:28:12 > 0:28:16and it's actually fantastically skilfully done, this foreshortening,
0:28:16 > 0:28:19and if you look at the face
0:28:19 > 0:28:24of the parachutist, it's got this wonderful fresh-faced expression.
0:28:26 > 0:28:32These really are, I think, probably among the very few genuine masterpieces of art
0:28:32 > 0:28:35produced under the tyranny of Stalin.
0:28:55 > 0:29:00Russia would suffer crippling losses in World War Two.
0:29:00 > 0:29:06But by its end, with Hitler defeated, Stalin was once more a hero to his long-suffering people.
0:29:10 > 0:29:15For a moment, it seemed as if the Russian avant-garde might flourish once more.
0:29:17 > 0:29:23During the conflict, Stalin had allowed even dissident artists to rouse the nation with their work.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27Anna Akhmatova's poems in the newspapers,
0:29:27 > 0:29:30Shostakovich's symphonies on the radio.
0:29:34 > 0:29:39But as soon as the war was over, the clampdown resumed,
0:29:39 > 0:29:42under Stalin's cultural apparatchik Zhdanov.
0:29:47 > 0:29:51Now, I've travelled one stop.
0:29:51 > 0:29:54But I've moved through a kind of chasm in time,
0:29:54 > 0:30:00because now we're in 1952.
0:30:00 > 0:30:06And this is the era when the dead hand of Stalinism reasserted itself.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10And what it's produced is a dead art.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15Compared to those beautiful mosaics of Deyneka,
0:30:15 > 0:30:19look at these ossified images set in tile.
0:30:19 > 0:30:24And what we've got here are images of a kind of fantasy Russia
0:30:24 > 0:30:28where peasants are forever happy and smiling.
0:30:28 > 0:30:34They've got these smiles painted onto their face as they reap the tall corn and prepare
0:30:34 > 0:30:36to kill the fatted calf.
0:30:36 > 0:30:41These are images that are being fed to a starving people.
0:30:41 > 0:30:45Images of an imaginary happy land for people who are actually living
0:30:45 > 0:30:49lives of extreme misery and hardship.
0:30:49 > 0:30:56Zhdanov even said that art must be optimistic, and you can feel that sense of enforced optimism here.
0:30:56 > 0:31:02There's a kind of heaviness about it, too. This barrel vault, it's like a Roman imperial vault,
0:31:02 > 0:31:05emblazoned with, again, images of things that the people didn't actually have.
0:31:05 > 0:31:07Corn, plenty, abundance.
0:31:08 > 0:31:13Of course, Stalin himself knew that this wonderfully happy Soviet state
0:31:13 > 0:31:18could only ever exist in the images of a fantasy art.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21So, boy, did he commission a lot of it.
0:31:34 > 0:31:38You won't find much of the art commissioned under Stalin
0:31:38 > 0:31:41on the walls of the New Tretyakov.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43But it's still there.
0:31:43 > 0:31:45You just have to look in the right place.
0:31:45 > 0:31:49Certainly hidden away, the socialist room.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05This is seriously idealised.
0:32:09 > 0:32:11Is this Deyneka too?
0:32:13 > 0:32:16They've got a whole Stalin section.
0:32:21 > 0:32:26I'm trying to see if I can find someone who isn't smiling in this picture.
0:32:26 > 0:32:28Extraordinary.
0:32:30 > 0:32:35And in this labyrinth, I was looking for one painting in particular.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38- Oh, we're here?- This side.
0:32:38 > 0:32:40This side?
0:32:40 > 0:32:42Oh, fantastic.
0:32:45 > 0:32:48Here he is.
0:32:48 > 0:32:50Wow.
0:32:55 > 0:32:56Uncle Joe.
0:32:59 > 0:33:00So, yeah.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06I bet he never imagined he'd be in the cupboard
0:33:06 > 0:33:11one day along with all the other unwanted lumber of history.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18One of the things you immediately notice about the picture
0:33:18 > 0:33:20is how reactionary its style is.
0:33:20 > 0:33:22I mean this painting... Take the figure of Stalin out,
0:33:22 > 0:33:26this could be basically a 19th-century landscape painting.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29I think that's part of the message of the picture.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32What it's saying is, it's saying to everybody, yes, there's been this huge upheaval.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34Yes, there's been revolution.
0:33:34 > 0:33:39Yes, it might seem as though society's turned on its head, but actually, don't worry.
0:33:39 > 0:33:44Everything's OK. Everything is as it has always been except better.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47Now we've got factories belching out smoke.
0:33:47 > 0:33:52We've got these huge collective farms being ploughed by these new combine harvesters.
0:33:52 > 0:33:57We've got pylons taking electricity and power to every corner of Russia.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00You've got to remember, these pictures were not painted for the intellectuals.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03These pictures were painted for the people.
0:34:03 > 0:34:09Every good Communist family was supposed to have a painting of Stalin on the wall of their house.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12And, again, to me, this is very much taking the language
0:34:12 > 0:34:15of old religious art and bringing it,
0:34:15 > 0:34:23using it for the Communist cause because Uncle Joe, standing there very much like a saint.
0:34:23 > 0:34:28There's a sense of votive stasis about this image of him.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31And he stands with the sunlight catching his face just as the sun
0:34:31 > 0:34:34catches the face of a Caravaggio saint.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38But, just one little detail,
0:34:38 > 0:34:43that even in paradise, you're being watched. Because...
0:34:43 > 0:34:47look at that car, that little tell-tale black car.
0:34:47 > 0:34:52That's the signature vehicle of the secret police.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57So, yes, everything's fine in this new Russia but just remember,
0:34:57 > 0:34:59you're being watched.
0:35:09 > 0:35:13All forms of dissidence were ruthlessly suppressed.
0:35:13 > 0:35:17It was actually illegal to say anything negative about
0:35:17 > 0:35:21the perpetually positive art of the Stalinist era.
0:35:23 > 0:35:27But one critic called Alexander Kamensky found a way.
0:35:27 > 0:35:32He wrote an essay that was simply a list of titles.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35And it went like this -
0:35:35 > 0:35:39'Congratulations to the Heroine', 'The Cotton Growers' Award Ceremony',
0:35:39 > 0:35:42'A Toast to the Hero of Socialist Labour',
0:35:42 > 0:35:46'The Glorious Days of the Shipbuilders', 'Industrial Successes',
0:35:46 > 0:35:49'Abundance of the Collective Farm'.
0:35:49 > 0:35:55The list went on and at the end the critic added just one ironic word of his own.
0:35:55 > 0:35:57"Etc".
0:36:04 > 0:36:09The art of the Stalinist past still looms like a threat
0:36:09 > 0:36:11over the Moscow cityscape today.
0:36:17 > 0:36:22You'd be forgiven for thinking those who created it were cynically going through the motions.
0:36:25 > 0:36:27But not all of them were.
0:36:31 > 0:36:36The sculptor who carved these heroic-looking figures is still alive today.
0:36:46 > 0:36:5390-year-old Nikolas Nikogosyan's studio is full of models for unbuilt monuments.
0:36:53 > 0:36:57I wondered whether he'd ever had any qualms about working for the regime.
0:37:50 > 0:37:54Nikogosyan's the living embodiment of the betrayed Communist dream.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00You can imagine his sculptures scowling in lofty disapproval
0:38:00 > 0:38:03of the new capitalist Russia.
0:38:03 > 0:38:07And asking themselves the unanswerable question -
0:38:07 > 0:38:09"Where did it all go wrong?"
0:38:17 > 0:38:22Stalin died in 1953 and his successor, Nikita Krushchev,
0:38:22 > 0:38:26quickly signalled a change of direction.
0:38:26 > 0:38:33While the West entered the swinging '60s, Soviet Russia experienced a more limited thaw.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45The Space Programme opened fresh horizons.
0:38:45 > 0:38:53And out of this new optimism emerged Socialist Realism's spectacular last gasp.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19The most dynamic and extraordinary monument of Communist propaganda
0:39:19 > 0:39:26of the whole 1960s is, I think they call it, the Space Obelisk.
0:39:26 > 0:39:30What we've got is this great image of a rocket thrust
0:39:30 > 0:39:34phallically into the sky on its own plume of energy,
0:39:34 > 0:39:39rendered in the form of this beautiful curve of aluminium-clad metal.
0:39:39 > 0:39:44You've got a tremendous sense of abstract energy and of aspiration.
0:39:44 > 0:39:52It's as if just for a brief moment they've somehow managed to recover the energy and idealism of the very,
0:39:52 > 0:39:59very earliest Revolutionary Communist art, the spirit of Constructivism, all over again.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09Now, here at ground level,
0:40:09 > 0:40:13you've got this wonderful collective frieze, this kind of Parthenon
0:40:13 > 0:40:15frieze of Soviet space exploration.
0:40:15 > 0:40:17Everybody's been included.
0:40:17 > 0:40:19There's the wireless girl.
0:40:19 > 0:40:25Here you've got the heroic engineers pulling levers, pushing buttons.
0:40:25 > 0:40:33There's ground control talking to Major Yuri and it's all taking place
0:40:33 > 0:40:37under the tutelage of this Soviet deity.
0:40:37 > 0:40:41This ancient Slavic mythological figure of Mother Russia.
0:40:41 > 0:40:45Now, here at the end you've got the suited figure of Gagarin himself,
0:40:45 > 0:40:48the very first cosmonaut,
0:40:48 > 0:40:53ascending the ladder metaphorically into space.
0:40:53 > 0:40:59I can't help wondering why it was that space exploration should have tapped into the Soviet psyche
0:40:59 > 0:41:04in this way, should have produced this last great exhalation of Communist propaganda art.
0:41:04 > 0:41:07And I wonder if it wasn't because,
0:41:07 > 0:41:13really, they weren't just dreaming of exploring the great blue yonder.
0:41:13 > 0:41:18They were dreaming of escaping the Communist collectivist present.
0:41:41 > 0:41:45Despite its name, what Socialist Realism never showed
0:41:45 > 0:41:47was social reality -
0:41:47 > 0:41:50how people actually lived.
0:41:54 > 0:41:57For decades, millions of Russians
0:41:57 > 0:42:02had co-existed in cramped communal flats.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06State propaganda insisted that this was happy collectivism.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09But it wasn't.
0:42:20 > 0:42:22And there was one artist,
0:42:22 > 0:42:27a dissenter, who was prepared to expose the rot.
0:42:29 > 0:42:32From the 1970s, Ilya Kabakov
0:42:32 > 0:42:38created haunting installations inspired by the communal flats.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40He prepared them in secret.
0:42:40 > 0:42:46He even made this one look like an archive so if the KGB came calling,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49they wouldn't know that it was art.
0:42:49 > 0:42:54Every object stands for a different person or event
0:42:54 > 0:42:57in the overpopulated tenement.
0:42:57 > 0:43:01This is the slipper of the old man who paced about at night.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05These are the pots and pans we argue over.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08Whose turn is it to boil the cabbage?
0:43:10 > 0:43:13This is a lapel badge.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17It was worn by the man who reported our friends to the secret police.
0:43:20 > 0:43:23It's a bleak inventory of unhappiness.
0:43:23 > 0:43:27But it was also a blueprint for radical change.
0:43:32 > 0:43:37Kabakov was part of a generation of underground artists who exhibited
0:43:37 > 0:43:39covertly in their homes.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45I've come to see painter Tatiana Levitskaia,
0:43:45 > 0:43:49a veteran from those years, who still lives in Moscow.
0:43:49 > 0:43:54She remembers the era of secret exhibitions and whispered dissent.
0:43:58 > 0:44:00- Hello.- Tatiana!
0:44:00 > 0:44:02Hello.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06Hello. Very nice to see you.
0:44:06 > 0:44:08Was it difficult, the life of an artist?
0:44:08 > 0:44:14Yes, I can say it's difficult because you always see at the window, grey people.
0:44:14 > 0:44:17You call them grey people?
0:44:17 > 0:44:19- Yes.- Was that the KGB?
0:44:19 > 0:44:20- Yes.- Really?- Yeah.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23So, you're looking out of the window to see if the KGB...
0:44:23 > 0:44:25Because they all the same.
0:44:25 > 0:44:29From the first glance, you can see that it's is KGB.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33Some time they want to make us to be afraid.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35Oh, I see. So, they stand
0:44:35 > 0:44:37- outside the flat?- They say, "We see.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40"We go there and...". We are not usual...
0:44:40 > 0:44:44- They think your art is irregular? - Yes, very irregular.
0:44:46 > 0:44:48In 1974, Tatiana was part
0:44:48 > 0:44:52of a clandestine exhibition staged in a forest.
0:44:52 > 0:44:57It was bulldozed by the police and the art destroyed.
0:44:57 > 0:45:02But public response was so strong that the state censors backed down
0:45:02 > 0:45:05for fear of provoking open rebellion.
0:45:05 > 0:45:10Two weeks later, the same artists were allowed to show their work openly.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14So much people come to this place.
0:45:14 > 0:45:19They were really happy and they cried, they cried.
0:45:21 > 0:45:25They said, "How wonderful you are!"
0:45:25 > 0:45:32because they didn't know that artists like us exist.
0:45:34 > 0:45:36So for me,
0:45:36 > 0:45:41it was the happiest moment of my life.
0:45:48 > 0:45:54Do you think that you were actually part of some kind revolution at that time?
0:45:54 > 0:45:57We understood that time was changed,
0:45:57 > 0:46:03because everybody started to think maybe I don't go there,
0:46:03 > 0:46:06maybe I don't make it,
0:46:06 > 0:46:09maybe I don't say so,
0:46:09 > 0:46:12and nothing will happen.
0:46:12 > 0:46:17Freedom is coming and grass is growing,
0:46:17 > 0:46:19growing very quickly.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23The time when Gorbachev came,
0:46:23 > 0:46:30the grass was very old, very tall.
0:46:30 > 0:46:36For years, the two countries have been glowering at each other threatening nuclear destruction.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms signalled the beginning of the end.
0:46:42 > 0:46:47In 1991, the seemingly impossible happened.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52To universal astonishment, the Soviet Union simply dissolved.
0:46:54 > 0:47:01Exhilarated by the freedom they'd fought so hard for, Russia's artists unleashed a tsunami of work.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07They put two fingers up to the old world order.
0:47:14 > 0:47:19Igor Markin is Russia's answer to Charles Saatchi.
0:47:19 > 0:47:25In the past 15 years, he's snapped up pretty much every piece of post-perestroika art
0:47:25 > 0:47:28worth owning, and then some.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40And he's crammed it all into his very own museum.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44Like Lenin meets Giacometti.
0:47:44 > 0:47:49- Good space, this. - This is my favourite room, the best room in the museum.
0:47:51 > 0:47:53- LOW CHIME - That's good.
0:47:53 > 0:47:58- Who made this piece?- I forget!
0:47:59 > 0:48:01But you like it.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05It feels to me like a museum about Russia.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09In the sense that this generation of artists you are collecting,
0:48:09 > 0:48:11that's actually the question they are asking themselves.
0:48:11 > 0:48:13What happens next?
0:48:13 > 0:48:15What are we going to do?
0:48:15 > 0:48:18- What's in here?- This is the toilet.
0:48:18 > 0:48:20This is the toilet?
0:48:20 > 0:48:22Wow. I think that's fantastic.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29In the old Soviet times every office, every institution,
0:48:29 > 0:48:34had an official book where you could make comments and complaints.
0:48:34 > 0:48:38And he decided to make instead of that book,
0:48:38 > 0:48:41the lavatory of his museum would be the space of complaint
0:48:41 > 0:48:43and free self-expression. I think it's a great idea.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48- Write something. - I'll try and write something.
0:48:48 > 0:48:53I'm just looking for a little bit of clear space.
0:49:02 > 0:49:04That's my small contribution.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15There's a lot of mockery and free expression here, but also uncertainty.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22Art struggling to find an identity.
0:49:22 > 0:49:27Russian artists today do face a difficult choice.
0:49:31 > 0:49:37Communism may have gone, but it seems the old structures are still in place.
0:49:39 > 0:49:43And if an artist really wants to be part of the system,
0:49:43 > 0:49:45he's got to toe the party line.
0:49:48 > 0:49:54This is the work of Russia's most successful modern artist, Zurab Tsereteli.
0:49:54 > 0:49:59It's a 200-foot-high statue of Peter the Great.
0:50:00 > 0:50:04In one sense, it says Communism is over.
0:50:04 > 0:50:08Russia acknowledges its Tsarist past.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11But it hasn't exactly turned away from autocracy.
0:50:11 > 0:50:16There's just one man at the helm, one all-powerful leader.
0:50:17 > 0:50:19We arranged to meet Tsereteli
0:50:19 > 0:50:23at the Russian Academy of Arts, where he's president.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26He's a man much in favour with Russia's leadership.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29An entire wing of the State Academy is filled with his own work.
0:50:29 > 0:50:33Do you know when he's going to get here? We've been waiting for two hours.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36This is his family crest.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40This is his self-portrait.
0:50:40 > 0:50:44And here at last is the man himself.
0:50:55 > 0:50:57Andrei is good.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04In Georgian it would sound like "Andrik".
0:51:04 > 0:51:06OK. Andrik.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10May we look round the work?
0:51:16 > 0:51:19I'm fascinated by this apple.
0:51:19 > 0:51:22Can we go inside the apple?
0:51:31 > 0:51:33Wow...
0:51:33 > 0:51:36This is extraordinary...
0:51:36 > 0:51:39There is certainly quite a lot of sex going on in here.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43You can see in the centre, avant-garde moments up here...
0:51:43 > 0:51:48It wasn't the first thing that struck my attention, the avant-garde aspects.
0:51:52 > 0:51:58TRANSLATOR: For me, the main thing is art for art's sake...
0:51:58 > 0:52:03'I was genuinely struck dumb by the Kama Sutra sex apple.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07'So I asked him if he could show me some portraits...'
0:52:12 > 0:52:15There's more... It goes on through here, too.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17Who's this figure?
0:52:19 > 0:52:21This is our mayor, Mr Luzhkov.
0:52:21 > 0:52:23He's the mayor of Moscow?
0:52:23 > 0:52:25Mayor of Moscow...
0:52:25 > 0:52:32The broom symbolises how he is sweeping bad things out of Moscow.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35How he's making life in the city better.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38Is Mr Tsereteli a friend of the mayor?
0:52:43 > 0:52:45Of course. So...
0:52:46 > 0:52:48Do I recognise this man?
0:52:52 > 0:52:56What's the title, then?
0:52:56 > 0:52:58Healthy spirit, healthy body.
0:52:58 > 0:53:01So it's not called Portrait of Putin?
0:53:08 > 0:53:12TRANSLATOR: I've tried to look at people from an artistic viewpoint...
0:53:12 > 0:53:15those whom I love, those whom I cherish,
0:53:15 > 0:53:18I try to create the images...
0:53:20 > 0:53:22I haven't stopped yet... If I liked you...
0:53:24 > 0:53:27maybe I would make a sculpture of you.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31'Tsereteli's world is certainly unique.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34'I also find it hard to fathom.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37'It's an odd mix of the old and the new,
0:53:37 > 0:53:41'a strangely hollowed-out version of the old Soviet Socialist Realism.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47'Communist art with the ideology removed.
0:53:47 > 0:53:53'It's as if the only thing this art believes in is power itself.'
0:54:09 > 0:54:11But there is another way.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18This strange apparatus
0:54:18 > 0:54:21is the work of Andrei Molodkin.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26His heroes are the Constructivists.
0:54:26 > 0:54:32You can sense that in the grid-like forms, in his love of engineering and machines...
0:54:34 > 0:54:37He's filling these structures of the past with new life...
0:54:37 > 0:54:39and new substance...
0:54:46 > 0:54:47So is that the smell of Russian oil?
0:54:47 > 0:54:52Yes, I think it smells of Russian oil and smell of Russia.
0:54:52 > 0:54:55When you smell deeply you can feel the Russia I think,
0:54:55 > 0:54:58better than you can see the souls of Russia.
0:54:58 > 0:55:04For me it's very important that people can come and can really touch this oil,
0:55:04 > 0:55:08they can really smell it and understand that oil is organic
0:55:08 > 0:55:11material and it's part of Russian identification.
0:55:11 > 0:55:18In a sense, I suppose literally, this is the stuff of Russian history, isn't it?
0:55:18 > 0:55:21This is Russia's pre-history.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26Yeah, of course, because as everyone knows that oil comes from organic material and we can imagine that
0:55:26 > 0:55:31all life, which kind of stains the territory of Russia, this is it here.
0:55:31 > 0:55:37That's why, when we burn in car the oil, we burn our history, we burn our past.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40I think it's very important ideas to think about.
0:55:44 > 0:55:49Andrei Molodkin's work is dark and disillusioned, but there's hope there, too.
0:55:50 > 0:55:55He's fascinated by the structures and ideas that once seemed
0:55:55 > 0:55:57to promise a Communist utopia,
0:55:57 > 0:56:02but he takes a carnival-esque pleasure in disrupting them.
0:56:05 > 0:56:10So I feel like we are getting down
0:56:10 > 0:56:14into the basement of your thought.
0:56:14 > 0:56:19- Yeah.- This is like a mock-altar, everything's turned upside down.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23Yeah, that's why it looks like life to oil...and oil to life.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27It's funny, I almost want to take one and turn it upside down...
0:56:27 > 0:56:29Because when you see it...
0:56:32 > 0:56:37It's really, ideally, like this works in this kind of way...
0:56:40 > 0:56:42it's much more formal, starts to be.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46Yeah I quite like it that way round... If we make a revolution... shall I help you?
0:56:46 > 0:56:50Yeah, because before, I was thinking, "Oh, it's a little bit too direct."
0:56:50 > 0:56:52I even can't sleep about it.
0:56:52 > 0:56:54That's great. So we're actually changing the work...
0:56:56 > 0:56:58Poor old Karl Marx.
0:57:01 > 0:57:03If you could change the world...
0:57:03 > 0:57:07- How?- Yeah, like we do now. - Turn everything upside-down?
0:57:07 > 0:57:10Yeah, of course. It's great things.
0:57:10 > 0:57:12It was
0:57:12 > 0:57:15one work... now it's starting to be other work...
0:57:15 > 0:57:17- I really love it.- You love it?
0:57:17 > 0:57:19So we've done some good work today!
0:57:29 > 0:57:31I like Molodkin's vision of history.
0:57:31 > 0:57:36For him it's a story of revolution, and circulation.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44It's as if, after all the failed experiments, he's drilling down
0:57:44 > 0:57:48to the essence of Russian reality - oil,
0:57:48 > 0:57:53the substance of pre-history, and the fuel of its economic future.
0:58:06 > 0:58:09But when I think back through a thousand years of Russian history,
0:58:09 > 0:58:12there's surely another cycle at work here.
0:58:16 > 0:58:19A seemingly eternal alternation
0:58:19 > 0:58:23between conformity and rebellion.
0:58:23 > 0:58:28For centuries, one set of tyrants after another has tried to contain
0:58:28 > 0:58:35the population, to fuse the many, into one, using art as a tool.
0:58:40 > 0:58:43But I wonder if Russia's people have finally had enough
0:58:43 > 0:58:45of being controlled and disciplined.
0:58:48 > 0:58:52I can't say what lies ahead for Russia or for Russia's artists,
0:58:52 > 0:58:56but I know one thing for sure. As the old Russian proverb says,
0:58:56 > 0:59:00"Life will never be just a walk through an open field".
0:59:11 > 0:59:14Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:59:14 > 0:59:17E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk