In a famous short story, writer Boris Akunin suggested that Tsereteli was, in fact, an alien with telepathic abilities. How else to explain his unique ability to cast a spell on authorities, no matter how ludicrous his ideas and how strong the opposition to them. I feel more than slightly affronted when it turns out that Tsereteli even tried to erect one of ‘his’ monuments to my favourite poet, Joseph Brodsky. His plan occasioned a mass internet campaign under the banner ‘Save Brodsky’. (The poet had been dead for more than a decade, but horrified fans could well imagine him turning in his grave at being immortalised by the sculptor.) Mikhail Shemyakin is of course no Tsereteli, except that politically they have the same ‘cover’. But Tsereteli does set the context for viewing any new sculptural addition to the cityscape of Moscow and for grasping the persistence of the tradition of the Artist Laureates or court artists, which, of course, reaches its apotheosis in the Soviet period. His ‘reign’ has undoubtedly contributed a great deal to the overwhelming air of cynicism that these days greets the emergence of the next sculptural ‘masterpiece’ in Russia, no matter who it is by. Shemyakin’s ensemble of vices tightening their grip on the angelic children is enclosed by a cast-iron fence and guarded at night by security after repeated attacks by vandals. The last straw apparently was when the copper strings connecting the statue of Pseudoscience to the two-headed dog were sawn off. Billie and I visit the sculpture during the day, so we do not have to bribe security to see it. Billie fills her diary with the photographs of vices – one vice per page, while, quietly, I feel a growing disease about the public life of Shemyakin’s ode to children.
And so I keep digging. It turns out that in 2007 it was in Bolotnaya Square, at the side of Shemyakin’s grotesque figures, that the first official (and much-reported) gathering of children’s movement Mishki (Teddy Bears) took place. Mishki’s full name is ‘Youth Organisation for the All-Round Development of Personality, Patriotic and Moral Education of Children and Youth’. Scary. At the time of Mishki’s big entrance, Yulia Zimova, its twenty-year-old founder, told journalists that the movement’s aim was to teach children pride in their town and country, responsibility, independence and concern for others. It almost sounds like a harmless version of Scouts, if only the movement was not set up by members of Nashi – a youth organisation with strong funding and ideological links to the Kremlin, and conceived as a Russian response to the Ukraine’s ‘Orange Revolution’. Journalists predisposed to be critical of the current regime, who do not share Nashi’s personal loyalty to Putin as Russia’s saviour, often refer to the young members of the movement as ‘nashists’. In fact, the references to Fascism and Hitler-Jugend abound, as well as to the Soviet-era youth groups such as the Octobrists, Young Pioneers and Komsomol.
What does Nashi want? The full and swift restoration of Russia’s greatness, of course. Its membership wants people to be swollen with pride for their country. They want the rest of the world, America and Britain in particular, to sit up and listen (shaking in fear will be the next step, of course, all things going to plan). They want a ‘clean’, ‘strong’ and ‘united’ nation, and that means sweeping the country with a big, long broom to rid it of all kinds of scum – ethnics, democrats, prostitutes. In some of the most notorious incidents involving the group, Nashi harassed the British ambassador to Russia after he attended an opposition rally, picketing the embassy and disrupting the ambassador’s public-speaking engagements. They also camped outside the Estonian Embassy to protest the relocation from the centre of the Estonian capital of a statue commemorating the loss of Russian and Soviet lives during World War II. Nashi do not limit themselves to ideological warfare, either: the movement offers paramilitary training to give its members important ‘life’ skills (breaking up opposition rallies, for instance).
And so Shemyakin’s sculptures, so dear to my and Billie’s hearts, work brilliantly within this militant, ultra-patriotic vision. Nashi and their Teddies are committed to protecting Shemyakin’s blindfolded children from the adult chimeras that encircle them. In fact, the youth movements call on young people to take destiny into their hands so as to ensure they do not become victims of adult vices – bingo! Does it only happen in this country that absolutely everything can be turned on its head and smeared with enough dirt and cynicism to last anyone a lifetime? As a phenomenon, Mishki is both obscene (forced political participation of children is illegal even in Russia, to say nothing of being deeply immoral) and unintentionally hilarious, especially in its infantilisation of the political sphere. At the time of Mishki’s inception, Putin had just been re-elected Russian president, and Mishki asked him, in all seriousness too, to become the head of their movement, the Chief Teddy Bear. The leaders or guides of the movement, most of them at university studying to become teachers, are called ‘vozhatye’ – the same name was once given to young pioneer leaders. They operate within a farcical and stringently upheld internal hierarchy. A guide able to organise ten events with children is a Restless Bear (a species known for its legendary aggression, a fact clearly lost on the movement organisers but, then again, maybe not). Polar Bear unites children from ten apartment buildings, while at the top of the hierarchy is the Brown Bear or Megasuperbear, who has been able to solve children’s problems at a town or city level by, for instance, organising the construction of a playground. The children themselves are also divided into all kinds of bears. The oldest are Olympic Bears and the youngest are Tiny Teddies. (I am not joking.)
Mishki’s slogan is ‘Thank you, Mr Putin, for our stable future’, which caused Lev Rubinstein to note that this time Putin had outdone even Stalin. In Stalin’s times, the slogan was ‘Thank you to Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood’. It is, of course, so tempting to think of Putin as the direct heir to Stalin, and his brand of neo-totalitarianism as a far more moderate, modern and ideologically savvy version of Stalin’s iron fist, but I am persuaded by writer and journalist Dmitriy Bykov who writes, ‘In the case of Putin we are dealing not with the cult of personality – since the personality barely manifests itself and, plus, it is hermetically sealed from strangers’ eyes – but with the cult of substance.’ That substance, Bykov notes, is virtually impossible to define. It encapsulates ‘collective expectations which are greater than any kind of logic’, the dreams and wishes of the mob. Putinism, in other words, ‘is a phantom of mass self-hypnosis’. Putin’s rule is not comparable to Stalin’s cult of personality because Putin is not a personality but the archetypal man without qualities, the medium for the masses.
What does it all mean for me and Billie? Is Shemyakin forever ruined for us? Am I meant to hold him responsible for providing a nice scenic backdrop for the lowest kinds of bigots who are turning children into zombie-like teddies, because frankly he should have known better? He knows what this place is like. I have not read a single intelligent defence of Shemyakin’s sculptures beyond an article on a Kremlin website, in which some sociologist or psychologist lamented Muscovites’ ‘disproportionate response’ to the introduction of new monuments. Why is no one of any credibility defending Shemyakin? Is it because his work is completely compromised by Luzhkov’s intimate patronage? Is it because people are sick of auteurs claiming their living spaces? Does it all stink of unbridled narcissism? Are people wary of any artistic statement insisting that children’s bright future is under threat unless we all immediately commit some kind of collective exorcism? Perhaps, most importantly, should I tell Billie even a quarter of this? Because if I do, I will be cold-bloodedly destroying in the name of her political and cultural literacy the one thing she has really responded to. I do not want my daughter to be a clueless tourist admiring toxic landmarks, but I would hate for her to be ridden with suspicions, always looking for the ulterior motives, for some dirt that you can inevitably find if you scratch any kind of surface around here. I do not want her to keep asking, ‘Mum, what’s the catch?’ The truth is that I cannot kill Shemyakin for Billie. On our return to Australia, she shows the photographs of the sculptures to anyone who cares to see them. ‘Mum and I loved the whole thing,’ she says. ‘We thought it was a masterpiece.’ And to that I keep my mouth shut and nod rather uncharacteristically because, if the truth is to be known, we did love it – what else is there to say?