Elektrichka Land Reloaded (Announcing a Project)
For almost a decade I contemplated how I could write about what had become my new surroundings: the town of Zheleznodorozhny. After first coming to Russia in 2000 and spending most of my early years in Moscow (with one year in the city of Novkuznetsk in Siberia's Kemerovo Region), I moved to Zheleznodorozhny in 2007. Moving from the capital city to a suburb was something of a trauma. Culture (film screenings and festivals, art exhibitions, book readings and meetings with the authors, concerts) had been ubiquitous in Moscow. In the town of Zheleznodorozhny there were nowhere to be seen. Only a trip by elektrichka and a return around midnight could return something of that lost world. Slowly I realised that I would not be returning to live in Moscow and that these new surroundings would have me in their grip. How many years have taught me that resistance was useless? Many, all too many. And yet to me there came a sense that maybe, just maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Of all ...