Sokolniki Park

On Friday morning I was taken on an excursion by Irina Petrovna and another professor in the Russian as a Foreign Language department, along with several other foreign students and a professor (5 ethnic Uighur Chinese and an Iranian family of 3). We rode the trolleybus and metro to Sokolniki Park (Falcon Park), which is situated on the old hunting grounds of the tsar. Of course, rather than leave the park in its most natural form, the Soviets laid down cement paths throughout the area in addition to big exhibition pavilions and funhouses/carnival attractions for children, which are of course closed down in this weather and instead give the appearance of a horror film set. As for the paths, no cement can withstand the cold conditions of Moscow unscathed, and so most of them are cracked and potholed.

But, we were not there to critique the park’s construction. We were going to see the exhibits in the pavilions. Right now, there is a special exhibit on world calligraphy, which I found fascinating. And talk about a contrast between the appearance of the park outside and the interior of this pavilion/museum. It is super modern inside. A white, minimalist design set-off by blue lights and wide open spaces between exhibit-cubes. White roses and sculptures tastefully placed throughout the pavilion, in addition to telescopes--the reasoning was as such: there was a motif that the art of calligraphy comes from the heart and travels through the soul, thus becoming a ’higher’ or ’universal’ art. In one room in the center of the first floor of the pavilion was a fireplace, above which was a work of art that consisted of a golden 3-D heart emerging from a red background. If you stood in front of this piece and looked straight ahead, you would be led to a free-standing staircase. At the top of this staircase was one small room in which was placed an example of ancient Hebrew calligraphy found near Mt. Sinai. This was supposed to represent the soul. Then, if you went up to the second floor of the pavilion you could see a few posters on the ceiling above this free-standing ’soul room’. Looking through a telescope, you could see that the posters showed Earth and the planets--a representation of the universe and our small role within it. Strange? Yes. But nonetheless done tastefully? Yes.