Patina

I grew up in Soviet Russia. My peers and I had Soviet cartoons, movies, soccer, skates, bicycles, but we really wanted a game console and a VCR.Then the country I was born in ceased to exist. The abundance of the capitalist world took the place of Soviet scarcity. Culture from the West and the East seeped in with Snickers candy bars and Chinese Abibas sports knockoffs.Almost thirty years later, the VCR and set-top box are packed into a smartphone case. And I go to the store and buy “Soviet” things. I get them out of junk yards at flea markets, look for them in the interiors and garages of acquaintances. In photographs, in the hands of young people who did not even live in the Soviet country, they turn out to be paradoxical objects. Objects promising a bright future that will never come.