West Hollywood, California (November 19, 2009) - Today in Russia there exists a tremendous flourishing of the arts, brought upon by a more free society, relative prosperity and a surge in interest in the arts by the huge numbers of young Russians populating the immense country. 
Samara Film & Animation School Founders Fedotov & DjuDjukina. Photo by Roy Rogers Oldenkamp. WeHo News. |
Spanning eleven time zones, this gigantic and diverse land offers the visitor many a surprise.
This writer and producer, attending the opening of the Alexander Fedotov Samara Film & Animation School, soon found the city itself had become an arts showcase.
A resort city on the famed Volga River, Samara is also an industrial center, home of Russia’s Lada auto, myriad beer factories and spectacular architecture.
Expecting grey block soviet housing, it was a shock to see just how cosmopolitan this historic city truly is, with Stalinka Parisian style flats and offices juxtaposed against the rather grim Kruschevka blocks of endless apartments stacked in huge facades.
First, who knew the murderous Joseph Stalin had an interest in French neoclassical architecture? Yet its prevalence is unmistakable throughout Russia, a holdover from the gilded age.
Photo by Roy Rogers Oldenkamp. WeHo News. |
Modern buildings here resemble the worst edifices in Samara, and only a few oil oligarchs have actually hired innovative architects for their modern structures.
Samara offered more visual surprises, from neoclassic apartments to grim, brutalist soviet architecture.
Art Nouveau had it late 1800’s heyday in Samara as well, lasting up until the Russian Revolution and today just now being recognized as significant and undergoing restoration.
The harsh climate – baking in summer, freezing in winter-makes the restoration work all the more necessary and difficult.
From 1860 to 1917, Samara and most of Russia underwent a cultural and financial explosion, often emulating Western Europe yet adding its own character and design elements.
Photo by Roy Rogers Oldenkamp. WeHo News. |
The image of Russia as a dull, backward state is far from the reality.
Filled with color and outgoing people who have been given a new lease on life, its secrets are splendid and its history unique.
The film school itself is in the Palace of Fine Arts of Samara, a rambling neoclassical edifice filled with Lenin stained glass and murals.
The school is partially subsidized by the state, but is largely the brainchild of Alexander Fedotov, the young director who is currently working on the documentary of WeHo’s own Tara, the mansion and cultural asset at 1343 N. Laurel Avenue.
Similarly, Samara has many threatened buildings as well, a parallel to our fate here in West Hollywood.
Photo by Roy Rogers Oldenkamp. WeHo News. |
Decorative wood homes from hundreds of years ago are being destroyed for luxury homes and condos, and the very fabric of the old city is in peril.
Mr. Fedotov and this author with producer and co-host of my trip Alyona Djudjukina plan a documentary on this sad phenomenon in the summer of 2010.
The buildings are unique, some the city dwellings of country bourgeois families, others much more modest, yet all decorated with crenulated facades that resemble American Victorian architectural design.
Many have their first level a few feet below ground, likely to keep the extreme climate at bay.
Some of these dachas-nearly all inhabited- have been bought by artists and are now desired for their style and historic merit. Yet more fall by the day and the state does little to preserve them.
Photo by Roy Rogers Oldenkamp. WeHo News. |
The Duchess House is a rare exception, a raw wood edifice of great splendor and a little spooky at that. The mansion is surrounded by tall, bland modern apartments that shadow its façade.
Hopefully the documentary will shed some light on the crisis in this city; the timing seems perfect for the film school to flex its cultural muscle in a meaningful way.
A sensation in Samara, the school is already fully staffed and enrollment is filled as well.
The school has a short film festival in mind for itself, and expressed interest in bringing a work to premier at any festival in WeHo that we residents initiate for 2010.
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