Moscow’s Manege Exhibition Hall has opened a scale display dedicated to Mikhail Gorbachev and his era – that of Glasnost and Perestroika, of changes. This major project unveils the overview of the political, social and cultural context of the 1980s.
Mikhail Gorbachev personally attended the opening of the display on Monday afternoon. The opening ceremony was darkened with the news about the bombing in Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport and began with a minute's silence.
“I know what press is, what photography is, what cinema is, I love it all. And thereupon major decisions were taken, the law on the freedom of press. Everything takes its roots from Perestroika in order to widen the borders of freedom. Without Glasnonst I’d probably still be the Secretary-General,” Mikhail Gorbachev said at the opening of the display, coinciding with the year of his 80th birthday.
Read more about Mikhail Gorbachev on Russiapedia
The 1980s are rightfully associated with the name of the first and last president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev. This decade entered the history of Russia as the era of major transformations in the Soviet political and economical system, the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Iron Curtain. These years have also become the age of the Soviet Cultural Revolution. The latter gave the green light for dozens of artists of all media, such as cinema, music, photography and others, to flourish. Their artworks made a significant part of the display.
Some 300 photographs depict the milestone events of the 1980s such as the fall of the Berlin Wall; the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan; the return of Soviet nuclear physicist and one of the creators of the Soviet H-bomb, dissident and human rights activist Andrey Sakharov from exile; Soviet coup and tanks in Moscow in August 1991.
Other photographs show the active social life of those controversial years with their meetings, life in communal apartments, children and pensioners, punks, musicians and artists. Two halls of the display are dedicated to the cultural transformations of the 1980s with a new booming artistic life. The voice of singer Victor Tsoy, the front man of legendary rock band "Kino", one of the pioneers of Russian rock became the idol of that epoch. Their song “Peremen!” (We Demand Changes!) was chosen by the organizers as the soundtrack of the display.
Apart from “Kino”, the photographs feature other alternative rock musicians, such as “Zvuki Mu”, “Aquarium", then a young singer Zhanna Aguzarova; underground artists widely known today, such as Sergey Mironenko, Andrey Filippov, Yury Avvakumov, Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Pavel Pepperstein and others.
The project offers a wide overview of one of the most interesting periods in the history of Russia. Along with documentary photo-shoots, the display shows issues of the 1980s press, big screens display feature films which contributed a lot to Soviet and Russian filmmaking. Among them are “Taxi Blues”, for which Pavel Lungin won the Best Director award in Cannes in 1990; "Plumbum, or a Dangerous Game" (1986) by Vadim Abdrashitov, which scored an award at Venice Film Festival in 1987; Sergey Solovyov's "Assa" (1987), considered one of the main Soviet rock-music movies.
The display is open to the public from Tuesday January 25 and will run through to March 8.
