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TALES OF THE GOLDEN APPLES

Almetyevsk is Paradise

Әлмәт – җәннәт

TALES OF THE GOLDEN APPLES

Context

The joy of the long-awaited meeting

Process

Joint creation of a mural by city residents with the artist Natalya Pastukhova

Authors

Natalya Pastukhova (Ekaterinburg, Russia) and the residents of Almetyevsk

Address

1A/2 Hertsena, Yuldash shopping complex

The art object was created jointly with the residents of Almetyevsk

Context

The joy of the long-awaited meeting and recognizable symbols of the native region.

The «Tales of Golden Apples» public art program is based on a series of cultural studies conducted by anthropologists, historians and folklorists in the Almetyevsk region. Each of them is dedicated to the traditions, values, narratives and practices of the region's inhabitants.

«During the expedition and the preparation of an analytical report for the «Tales of Golden Apples» public art program, my team of anthropologists and folklorists discovered the origin of the Tatar phrase «ďalmət zhənnət». It can be translated literally as «Almetyevsk is Paradise». The phrase is based on the consonance of the words «ďalmət» and «ėənnət». This local designation also refers to an imaginary «golden age» (when fish were more abundant, the rivers were deeper, the berries were larger, etc.), a kind of nostalgia for one's childhood or youth. At the same time, this phrase contains a justification of the reasonable and correct choice of the locality for the foundation of the village by the ancestors. It also refers to the theme of «paradise» through «paradise»/«golden» apples («alma» in Tatar, also consonant with «Almet»).»

Nikita Petrov

Head of the Laboratory of Theoretical Folklore Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, associate professor of the Center for Typology and Semiotics of Folklore of the Russian State University, senior researcher at the Center for Folklore and Anthropology of the Moscow State University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Shanynka) (photographer: Darya Sorokina)

ďalmət zhənnət – «Almetyevsk is Paradise» in Tatar.

ďalmət – the name of the city in the Tatar language and the modern shortened form «Almet».

ėənnət – «heaven/paradise» in Tatar.

Photographer: Anton Selone.

The mural «Almetyevsk is Paradise» is painted on the wall of the Yuldash shopping center. However, it can only be approached from the side of the bus station, and the concept of the mural was also inspired by it. This work is about the joy of meeting and returning home. It's not the first time that artist Natalya Pastukhova comes to Almetyevsk under this public art program. She is well-known to the residents from the mural «Grow / Үстерү» from the «ABC Book / Әлифба» series and the master classes held in the city.

The mural portrays the main characters hugging each other, just like people arriving at the bus station and those who are meeting them do. In addition to hugging people, it depicts the artist's association with Almetyevsk: «apples, whose smell permeates the air in the city in September, endowing it with the feeling of a rich autumn harvest, geese and bright sunflowers that you see as you approach the city.»

«Over the five years of project implementation, we have held approximately 100 offline and online events for the residents of Almetyevsk — from master classes and art laboratories conducted by famous artists, lectures by historians and art historians to bicycle masquerades, a carnival spectacle, performances and non-trivial art object presentations. The creation of a joint mural with residents, which greets the city visitors as they arrive, is the logical conclusion of this large-scale program.»

Ekaterina Udalova

Сurator and author of the «Dialogue with the City» program (photographer: Sergey Matveev)

Process

Art object form: mural
Style: naive
Material used: facade paint

Ital. Mural — wall

Monumental wall painting created on a faсade or a blank wall of a building or any other urban architectural objects.

As part of the «Dialogue with the city» program of the final public art season of the «Tales of Golden Apples» program in 2022, a series of master classes took place in Almetyevsk, where residents and artists created art objects together.

Like the characters in «The Adventures of Tom Sawyer», the townspeople together with the artist Natalya Pastukhova painted the wall of the shopping center in the First Village. On the first day of the master class, the participants marked out the future mural, and on the following two days they painted with rollers and brushes along with the artist.

«Our team also calls this mural the «Tom Sawyer Wall». Its concept is inspired by the classic story from the book, when kids were whitewashing the fence together. This is an amazing form of joint action, when you can have fun and make a small contribution to a larger work. Participants are also learning and immersing themselves in the process: they see how an artist thinks, how a sketch is made, how it is transferred to the wall, how to draw correctly, what tools and materials are used. And when a person sees the result of his work, it makes him more involved in the city's fate. He understands that there are tools to transform the space around him.»

Anna Nystratova

Project curator, artist selection consultant, researcher of Russian street art, director of the Street Art Research Institute (photographer: Anya Lipman)

Photographer: Anton Selone.

«We painted this wall with a huge number of people. Master class participants, also got help from random passers-by. To someone like me, a street artist, projects like this are very valuable. Participants seem to appropriate a piece of space and then tell their friends that it was he who drew this cat/goose/tree. Thus, this place becomes important, visible, because it is impossible not to like something you have invested your time and attention in. Thus, the invisible wall became a place of attraction for many citizens.»

Natalya Pastukhova

Artist (photographer: Dmitry Chabanov)

Author

Natalya Pastukhova (Ekaterinburg)

Artist, designer, teacher (photographer: Dmitry Chabanov)

Natalya has been engaged in street art for a long time: her portfolio includes walls in Yekaterinburg and Perm, in Yamal and Novotroitsk, Novosibirsk and many other places. Natalya also engaged in branding and space design. Among her works are the IKEA bistro in Yekaterinburg and a car park in Finland. In addition, she oversees various children's programs: teaches book and magazine publishing, creates costumes for fantastic creatures, draws with children with special needs.

As part of the five-year «Tales of Golden Apples» public art program, Natalya held three master classes for city residents and painted the mural «Grow» in the collective project «ABC Book».

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