'This Is the New Russia'

摘要

In a forgotten corner of Moscow there is a ruin. One of those typical Soviet 1960s rectangular things produced by faceless architects. Trees have started to grow from the flat roof. The floor is broken. In what was once the central hall there is a mural in the deliriously happy socialist-realist manner: an orange sun, a young woman with flaming hair, a finger outstretched like the hand of God on the Sistine Chapel. The bottom of her leg is wrapped around with new graffiti: "PANKS!" it says ("punks" misspelled in Cyrillic). This sort of building is destroyed in Moscow every day. But Dasha Zhukova sees in it a thing of beauty.