Vladimir Mayakovsky is one of the greatest poets revolutionary era and the king of outrageousness in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Some even call him a punk of his time. The poet's expressive, satirical, topical creativity was inseparable from the lifestyle he led. A gambler, a rebel and a spendthrift, his eccentricity manifested itself in everything: in creativity, in love, in life, in appearance.
Mayakovsky did not recognize mediocrity in clothing; he dressed mainly abroad. He was one of the few representatives of Soviet art who managed to impress Yves Saint Laurent. The poet’s portrait hung in the house of the famous couturier, although they did not know each other.
Yellow sweater of futurism
Ivan Bunin wrote about Mayakovsky: “Here is his famous yellow jacket and savage painted face, but how evil and gloomy this face is!” This item of the poet's wardrobe at one time gained fame no less than a small black dress Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. In Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, clothes yellow color men did not wear them, so the sight of Mayakovsky caused an extremely indignant reaction. The yellow jacket received attention from everyone around her and even became part of numerous notes in the press.
Versace shirt, 50,500 rubles (FarFetch)
Cane and bell-bottom coat
The poet preferred loose coats to fitted models. He was very fond of a flared coat and often complemented the look with a cane. After the First World War, the cane ceased to be a popular attribute of a men's suit, but Mayakovsky continued to use it as an element of his style.
Coat Aquascutum Vintage, 17966 rubles (FarFetch)
Headwear: top hat, hat, flat cap
Mayakovsky preferred hats both familiar to his contemporaries and quite shocking. The latter includes a cylinder. The image was often complemented by a bow tied around the neck and the already mentioned cane, which made him somewhat similar to Oscar Wilde from the world of the proletariat.
Cap York Hat Co, 2490 rubles (Code7)
Bright jackets
The poet did not ignore color and design and, in addition to a yellow jacket, wore bright jackets and vests. For example, a tailor in Simferopol made a pink jacket with black satin lapels. In addition to pink, there was also velvet red and checkered. Colored ties were also not alien to him.
Circle of Gentelmen jacket, 30,360 rubles (TSUM)
Pea coat
The pea coat became another iconic item for Mayakovsky. The poet was a popularizer of the emerging fashion trends, and the pea coat at the beginning of the 20th century was just moving from the category of military to the category of everyday clothing.
Trench coat Michael Kors, 30,200 rubles (FarFetch)
Don’t forget about the tame squirrel, which the poet fed in the theater buffet with sweets that were in short supply in those years. To please his image, he removed a tooth and cut his hair bald. Provocation, in the case of Mayakovsky, became the key to success.
Irina SirotkinaWhat color is Mayakovsky's yellow jacket?
The exhibition “Mayakovsky “haute couture”: the art of dressing” reminded us that Mayakovsky is not a bronze monument from Triumph Square, but a living person with a strong and warm body and a normal desire to dress and decorate this body. The matryoshka title consists of two parts: “Mayakovsky: Haute couture" - a chapter from the book by Larisa Kolesnikova (Kolesnikova 2008) 1, who was in charge of the Museum’s memorial fund for many years; “The Art of Dressing” is the name of the magazine, which was designed by artist Valentina Khodasevich.
Behind the glory of Mayakovsky as a poet, his first incarnation as an artist is forgotten. This means that he had excellent taste in both painting and clothing. And he also knew how to create an image. For example, he could take a yellow ribbon from his sister and tie it around his neck instead of a tie: “I never had suits. There were two blouses of the most vile kind. A proven way is to decorate with a tie. No money. I took a piece of yellow ribbon from my sister. Tied up. Furor. This means that the most noticeable and beautiful thing in a person is a tie” (“Myself”). Like a true artist, Mayakovsky wore bows of different colors and mufflers made of black and yellow squares. On the hand-drawn cover of his first poetry collection, “I!” a bow flaunts.
At the exhibition, I finally saw what shade Mayakovsky’s famous yellow jacket was. This shade is warm, canary or, in the words of the poet himself, the color of sunset:
I'll make myself some black pants
A yellow jacket from three arshins of sunset.
The mother of the poet A.A. sewed a jacket from fabric with a black vertical stripe. Mayakovskaya. In a yellow jacket and top hat, Mayakovsky looked stunning - so much so that the police forbade him to perform in this jacket. The poet disguised himself: he came in a jacket, and before going on stage he changed into a jacket. “Jacket Veil” - Mayakovsky wanted to call the first collection of his poems. His fat image gave him confidence at public appearances:
It's good when wearing a yellow jacket
the soul is wrapped up from the inspection!
The first tour of the futurists - David Burliuk, Vasily Kamensky and Mayakovsky - owes a lot of its success to the yellow jacket. The futurists, according to Kamensky, received “Shalya-Pinsky” fees for the evenings. Gone are the days when Mayakovsky’s only coat was donated by Burliuk. After the tour, a pink moire tuxedo with black satin lapels, a red velvet vest, a shiny jacket, and a fashionable coat appeared in the poet’s wardrobe.
In the most hopeless post-revolutionary years, Mayakovsky knew how to maintain his life - in the Lubyanka, in a tiny room-boat, where a suitcase-trunk served as a wardrobe for him. Only later, in an apartment on Gendrikovovo, a respectable wardrobe, with a folding shelf and a shaving mirror. The cabinet is also on display, and next to it is a photograph of Mayakovsky shaving in front of this cabinet with a crazy look and a straight razor in his hand. You involuntarily think about its end - and, as a defensive reaction, Mayakovsky’s well-known joke pops up. Once he wanted to borrow a razor from his neighbors and was refused. “The razor is busy and will be busy for a long time,” they told him unkindly. “It’s clear: you’re shaving an elephant,” the poet snapped.
In the 1920s, together with constructivist artists Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova and Lyubov Popova, Mayakovsky worked to create a new, Soviet way of life - beautiful, comfortable and mass-produced things. His older sister Lyudmila, who graduated from the Stroganov School, worked as a textile artist at the Trekhgornaya Manufactory and Red Rose factories. At the exhibition there are samples of her fabrics, as well as those of Popova and Stepanova; the latter are constructivist, an early version of op art that emerged much later. The journal LEF, edited by Mayakovsky, also published theoretical articles about clothing (copies of articles by Varst (Varvara Stepanova) “Costume today- overalls" and Osip Brik's "From painting to cotton" are presented at the exhibition), and clothing models. On display are two tracksuits by Varvara Stepanova (reconstruction by N. Levit): red and white blouses, a skirt and shorts of constructivist shapes, made from cheap calico, sharply contrast with the good-quality wardrobe of Mayakovsky himself: an English cap, thin French caps shirts, tweed coat. In 1927, he gave a lecture to working people on the topic “Giving an Graceful Life.”
Some believe that Mayakovsky’s “bourgeois” passion for beautiful clothes and accessories was instilled in the poet by Lilya Brik, herself a fashionista and dandy. Because of this passion, the proletarian poet subsequently received the reputation of a “Soviet dandy.” Of course, after meeting Lilya in 1915, Mayakovsky’s appearance changed: in the photograph with her he looks in love, happy, and more elegant than ever. But elegance and artistry, as the exhibition once again convinces us of this, were characteristic of the poet both before and much later when he met Lilya. Having met Mayakovsky, Theodor Dreiser wrote: “dynamic, he looked like a boxer and dressed like an actor” (Kolesnikova 2008: 42). The slender, athletic, flexible Mayakovsky fit perfectly in any clothing - a blouse, a tuxedo, and a house jacket, which he especially loved. He did not share elegance and comfort - both in clothes and shoes. Dutch journalist Nico Rost met the poet on the Kurfürstendamm: “With a free, boxer-like stance, his figure was noticeable among pedestrians. He walked broadly, like a sailor on dry land” (ibid.: 112). Together they went to buy shoes for Mayakovsky. He chose sports boots with thick soles - “as strong as Russia” and which turned out to be the most expensive. He actually had expensive tastes. But can good taste be cheap?
order Moscow seamstress,
our country
will rush
on your neck, -
Mayakovsky wrote, but he continued to bring clothes for himself and outfits for Lily from abroad. By the way, a pair of shoes from the Weston company, brought from Paris, has been preserved. The shoes are like new. “An eternal thing,” Mayakovsky said about Westons. Yes, they turned out to be eternal, but only due to the fact that they were once on the poet’s feet. He himself, under any clothing, remained naked and free:
Let's tear off the nonsense of jackets and cuffs,
Let's paint the starchy breasts like a shell,
bend the handle on the table knife,
and we will all be Spaniards, at least for a day.
So that everyone, forgetting their northern mind,
loved, fought, worried.
the earth itself
call me for a waltz!
Take the sky again,
come up with new stars and display them,
so that, frantically scratching the roofs,
the souls of the artists climbed into the sky.
Literature
Kolesnikova 2008— Kolesnikova L. Other faces of Mayakovsky. M., 2008.
Note
1. I thank the head of the exhibition department of the Museum, Yulia Nikolaevna Sadovnikova, for her help in preparing the review and for the photographs provided.
19-05-2002
“Let’s throw Pushkin off the ship of modernity,” Mayakovsky called at poetry evenings at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. In general, Mayakovsky read something slightly different at the Polytechnic: “I love you, but alive, not a mummy,” and addressed Pushkin in touching verses with the most respectful Alexander Sergeevich , Let me introduce myself. Mayakovsky.” Yes, he sincerely signed the Futurist manifesto, which actually contained a call to “throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy... from the Steamboat of modernity.”
But this was not the case Soviet power, and even before the First World War, the tone in the movement of futurists - professional showmen and shockers - was set by completely different people (Burliuk, Kruchenykh). Young Mayakovsky in a yellow jacket was then as much a futurist as Picasso was later a communist, i.e. quite decorative.
The following story happened with this yellow jacket. Mayakovsky, everyone knows, had two oddities in life:
1. He was extremely passionate and at every free moment he was ready to play any conceivable and unimaginable games, most often cards: poker, “thousand”, point, fool - if there were no cards, he played chess, dice, checkers, spillikins, dominoes, ping-pong, billiards, twigs, in a Chinese language that no one understands old game mah-jong, bought in Mostorg - he always had with him a tape measure in the form wristwatch, he often twirled it just the way sometimes Franciscan monks finger their rosary beads, thinking about the eternal - even, just walking down the street, he made a bet with another random companion - they guessed the number of cabbies they met and the one whose guessed number was closest to for real - or they were simply arguing about who would spoil the air louder and more often...
2. He was painfully clean, tried to take a bath and change his shirts every day, in the pockets of his suits and coats there were always miniature soap dishes and napkins to wash his face and hands whenever there was at least some opportunity for this - whether at home , whether at a party, on the train, in a restaurant...
A dirty, yellow, clearly feminine jacket does not fit into the poet’s wardrobe. Nevertheless, numerous witnesses saw Mayakovsky in this jacket several times at public poetry evenings at Moscow State University, in the hall of the Conservatory, in the Palace of Culture of the Administration of the Russian railway. This jacket was even written about in the press.
It was a simple matter. On one of his trips to Europe, Mayakovsky met Gorky in Capri and showed him his poems.
Gorky received the new Russian poet with great enthusiasm. They spent 8 days together.
But, as it turned out later, they talked not only about literature. Gorky, while living in Italy, became more addicted to roulette than to his favorite cocaine. Every Thursday he hired a fishing scow and, putting a wide fisherman's straw hat on his head, went straight to Monaco for a couple of days, to the nearest casino. There he squandered his next fee for the “Song of the Petrel,” which was victoriously distributed in the most unimaginable translations throughout almost all countries of stupid, aging Europe.
Within a couple of hours after meeting, the future great writers learned the most important thing about each other and, trying not to waste time, began to play. We played poker for big. In the first two days, Mayakovsky lost greatly, he even sent to buy a pistol in order to pay in full.
But on the third day, fortune turned its back on Alexei Maksimych. He squandered his winnings and began to hand over his own. On the eighth day (Mayakovsky’s Italian visa was expiring)
Gorky decided to put his mistress Fanya Shub on the line. Mayakovsky won. But he didn’t take the elderly woman for himself. He took off all her clothes and returned them to Gorky. He threw away the woman's junk, leaving only the yellow jacket.
Returning to Russia, for the first six months I wore only this jacket to poetry evenings. Newspapers vied with each other to report on the futurist’s incredible outfit. This is how the male Mayakovsky demonstrated to the male Gorky his victory over him.
Gorky in Capri, reading the Russian press, tore out the hair on his head.
The dishonored Fanya Shub left Gorky and soon married the KGB agent Zorya Volovich.
In 1930, she was arrested by the French police in connection with the high-profile case of mysterious disappearance White Guard General Kutepov. Zorya managed to steal her from the prison hospital and safely take her away from France. They appeared in Moscow at the beginning of 1931. Zorya, with the rank of major, worked in the Operations Department
e OGPU. One of his most important tasks was to change the eagles on the Kremlin towers to five-pointed stars. In 1937, Zorya Volovich and Fanya Volovich were executed as French spies.
The yellow jacket also did not survive. Mayakovsky's poems about that successful win in Capri have been preserved:
Oh! This night!!
Despair pulled me tighter and tighter. From my crying and laughter
The face of the room squinted in horror
And in a vision the face taken away from you arose,
You stared at his carpet with your eyes,
As if some new Bialik was dreaming
The dazzling Jewish queen of Zion. II
Do you know why, by order of People’s Commissar Lunacharsky, Franz Lehár’s operetta “The Yellow Jacket,” which enjoyed enormous success, was removed from the repertoire?
Lehár received the libretto for the operetta, based on the events you describe by the money-hungry Petrel, from Fanny and in exactly the version that you outlined. In fact, Mayakovsky failed to get rid of her, much less take away her lucky yellow lift from the darling of all literary Europe.
Bored with the monotony of spending time in the villa and the miserliness of its owner, Fanny at first decided to simply take a trip to Moscow, but on the spot she quickly understood the revolutionary situation and since then has not parted with the poet, who at first glance seemed promising to her.
She did a lot, not to say everything, for his career.
Let us just note this fact: only she was trusted by Lunacharsky to accompany Mayakovsky on foreign business trips. During one of them, in Paris, her meeting with Lehar took place.
The international adventurer at that time already bore the surname Kaplan and lived in the same apartment with Osya, Lilya and Volodya in Merzlyakovsky Lane, where the State Museum of V.V. is now. Mayakovsky. Located on the departmental premises of a well-known institution on Lubyanka, this museum keeps many secrets. A photograph of Fanny R. Kaplan is also on display in the permanent exhibition, and, by the way, not even one.
Yes, but, as you know, there are no photographs of Kaplan that have survived. Indeed, even the famous portrait of her by Kazimir Malevich, after well-known events, was covered with black paint by the Chairman of the Cheka, Comrade Dzerzhinsky. The point here is this: Fanny Kaplan had a striking portrait resemblance to Vladimir Mayakovsky. Unlike the weak and shy young man, she had a thunderous voice and an unceremonious manner.
Having extensive experience communicating with almost all the outstanding writers of Europe of that time (among them, besides Gorky, we also note H.G. Wells), she did not particularly get along with the young poet.
Locking him in the apartment, she went to parties, and when she returned from them, sometimes midnight after midnight, she strictly recounted the lines she had written. Being drunk, she could have beaten me. It was during this period that the poet switched to an inexplicable style of writing poetry using the famous Mayakovsky staircase.”
However, for the sake of fairness, it should be noted that she, apparently, also beat up Max and Hero, whom she did not abandon and regularly visited one in London, the other in Capri - only this can explain the synchronous flowering of the talents of these three and a number of other Soviet and foreign classics .
Fanny’s varied talents were always highly valued by the Cheka. The rest is common knowledge. During a rally at the Mikhelson factory, the Latvian riflemen freely allowed the revolutionary poet to see the leader... Subsequently, for this operation, Fanny, on the recommendation of the Cheka, was awarded one of the first Orders of Lenin, and immediately after the action she was urgently transferred to another area of work: it was time to return her to her homeland from - beyond the borders of the Petrel of the Revolution. The yellow jacket was handed over to a special museum, the play of the same name was removed from the repertoire, the poet stopped performing at the Polytechnic, wrote a long poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”, and a few years later he shot himself. On his body they found the following poems, for some reason not written in “ladder” at all.
Bourgeois, bourgeois, goons, fraeras,
Hurry up and hide your fat body in the cliffs!
Freedom, freedom, eh-eh without the cross!
So let the storm blow stronger, damn it!
Eh-eh, dance... III
There is also such a version. Main role in this performance the then wife of the People's Commissar Natalya Aleksandrovna Rosenel was supposed to perform, but the part of "Yellow Jacket" was written for contralto, while Rosenel had a lyrical-dramatic sop
early. Lunacharsky wrote official notes (not musical) to Lehár, demanding to change some notes (musical) and, at the same time, the interpretation of the operetta, but the fascist composer considered it beneath his dignity to answer the little bald communist minister of education. Then Lunacharsky sent Prokofiev from abroad in order to change the contralto part to at least a coloratura mezzo-soprano. But nothing came of this either - the cunning Prokofiev used his visit for personal purposes, gave several concerts to the amazed public and fled back to Europe.
From Prokofiev's diary
(publication prepared by D. Gorbatov):
“I am introduced to everyone, among whom are several half-forgotten faces from the artistic world of pre-revolutionary times. Lunacharsky’s wife, or rather, one of the last wives, - beautiful woman, if you look at her from the front, but much less beautiful if you look at her predatory profile. She is an artist, and her last name is Rosanel...
<-…>- We move to another, small living room, furnished with some comfort.
Lunacharsky pulls out the first issue of LEF - a new magazine published by Mayakovsky.
LEF - means left front. Lunacharsky explains that Mayakovsky considers me a typical representative of LEF.
It will be all the more useful for you to listen,” he adds, “to Mayakovsky’s appeal, published in this issue.
Then Lunacharsky, not without enthusiasm and very well, reads a letter in verse from Mayakovsky to Gorky. The writing is really sharp, and some of the formulas in the poems are just good. Idea: Why, Alexey Maksimovich, when there is so much work in Russia, do you live somewhere in Italy?”
Here we see Prokofiev’s testimony that Mayakovsky, who had long ago stopped wearing a yellow jacket, public performance, continues to mock Gorky. And Lunacharsky, in the end, was simply faced with a choice - either change his wife once again, or once again make an operetta. The second option required less costs.
Yellow jacket
Suddenly Burliuk shouted loudly:
- Idea! Idea! Wait, idea! We must act as new, first Russian futurist poets! Three whales, and not a single symbolic perch!
- Yes Yes! But we will not be given premises, and the police will not allow it. Nobody knows that we are geniuses.
- To hell with him! Let them not give you space. No need. We will go to the streets of Moscow, in the thick of the people, and the three of us will read poetry. Our job is not to poke around in the offices of the editorial offices of rotten magazines that no one reads anyway. Time requires its tribunes-poets, and we will be them, we will be! We are recognized by the street, the square, the people, girls, boys, students, yard children. Everyone - who is on the street.
– Won’t they take us for a drunken group or random youngsters?
- No, they won’t accept it: we will put on special colorful clothes, paint our faces, and instead of roses we will put peasant wooden spoons in our buttonholes. Let our throats be disgusting to the common people. More mockery of the petty-bourgeois, bourgeois bastard. From now on our pleasure should be shocking the bourgeoisie. We, revolutionaries of art, are obliged to fit into the life of the street and gatherings. We are obliged to preach the new art in all major cities Russia.
However, I immediately realized that this entire program had already been thought out in advance by Burliuk and Mayakovsky and, obviously, they just did not know how to implement it, especially with regard to performances in provincial cities.
Volodya, confident in advance that he would not be refused, asked me:
– You are such a wonderful, famous aviator, great person modernity, you are dressed in an incomparable Parisian suit and real English shoes, you moved in France, in England. And how can some mayor refuse such a person if you ask him to allow a poster entitled: “Airplanes and Futurist Poetry.” And if there is such permission, they will give us both a hall and a box office.
Burliuk also persistently admonished me.
It was impossible to refuse Mayakovsky. He read Burliuk’s poems, read my “Razin” and the works of many other poets, as if playing with his phenomenal memory, made jokes, fooled around, put bottles on a cylinder, pretended to walk on a wire in a circus.
And with all this, he continued to agitate “in favor of the common great cause of modern art,” calling on me to be the organizer and “mother” of the entire Russian futurist movement.
– How wonderful it will be: Burliuk is a father. Kamensky - mother. I am the son. The rest are relatives.<…>
Mayakovsky, ruffling his mane of thick dark hair, walked and smoked, nervously biting a cigarette in the corner of his large mouth and throwing out abrupt phrases:
– It’s not a matter of whether we should fly or not. To break our ivories or not to break... The devil knows... Jack London... The Wright Brothers... The crazy gambler Hermann... Lisa... Love... "Whether it's clouds or thunder..." "What is our life..." The main thing is that we must and can do phenomenal phenomena in art and in life. Let's take the world by the beard and shake it... Let's hug the entire globe and turn it in the opposite direction, to the fear of all astronomers, and the hosts themselves, and the devil himself. All humanity is ours - and no talking. Let us publish a manifesto with an order to love and glorify us. And they will! Let's glut ourselves on the richness of the diamond deposits of our souls... Please...
Feathers of Moulting Angels
Let's throw our loved ones on their hats,
Let's have tails on boas
Cutting off comets.
And all this will definitely happen! Let's do it! In the meantime, you need to go out into the street with poetry and conversations.
- Bravissimo! We'll write everything down immediately! - Burliuk proclaimed, taking out the paper. And he began to write down, chanting every word:
– First. Exactly three days later at noon, all three poets - Mayakovsky, Kamensky, Burliuk in colorful clothes, in top hats, with painted faces, go out to Kuznetsky and, while walking, read their poems at the top of their lungs in turn in the sternest voice.
Second. Ignore the possible ridicule of fools and petty-bourgeois mockery.
Third. To the questions - who are you? - answer seriously: the geniuses of our time - Mayakovsky, Burliuk, Kamensky.
Fourth. To everyone else: this is how futurists live. Don't interfere with our work. Listen.
Fifth. Sew a yellow jacket for Mayakovsky
Sixth. Aviator V.V. Kamensky should go to the Moscow governor so that he allows him to give us a lecture about airplanes and the poetry of the Futurists under his, Kamensky, responsibility as a famous aviator pilot.
Seventh. Dear V.V. Kamensky must rent a room for a performance at the Polytechnic Museum and pay a deposit. And in general, bear all the costs of the organization.
Eighth. In case of complete well-being, V.V. Kamensky will be reimbursed for expenses and all profits will be divided equally.
Ninth. The poster should be yellow, and all the letters of large words should be in a different font.
Tenth. During the performance, place a hundred glasses of tea on the stage table so that you can drink it yourself and treat it to the respectable audience. At the moment of a possible scandal, remove the tea so as not to incur losses for broken dishes.
Eleventh. Just in case, during the performance, be present on stage for all three from beginning to end.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky."I myself":
YELLOW SWEATSHIRT
I never had costumes. There were two blouses - of the most vile kind. A proven way is to decorate with a tie. No money. I took a piece of yellow ribbon from my sister. Tied up. Furor. This means that the most noticeable and beautiful thing in a person is a tie. Obviously, if you increase the tie, the furor will increase. And since the sizes of ties are limited, I used a trick: I made a tie shirt and a shirt tie.
The impression is irresistible.
Vasily Vasilievich Kamensky:
Mayakovsky tried on a new orange jacket, sewn by his mother Alexandra Alekseevna and two sisters - Lyuda and Olya.
Burliuk was in a frock coat, with a collar trimmed multi-colored patches, wearing a yellow vest with silver buttons and a top hat.
My cocoa-colored Parisian suit was trimmed with gold brocade. There is also a cylinder on the head.
And on my forehead Mayakovsky drew an airplane with a makeup pencil. On Burliuk’s cheek Volodya depicted a dog with its tail raised.
Our view was masquerade and unusually picturesque.
Did we think that we might be met with a scandal? We thought.
Did we know that for violating public peace and order (and even on the streets) we could be seized by the police, taken to the police station and even expelled from Moscow? They knew.
Did we imagine that there could be a fight, a fight, a dump and God knows what kind of disgrace on Kuznetsky? They assumed.<…>
Mayakovsky refused to paint his face at the last moment, offering, however, to make up as a black man, to which he did not receive our consent.
Our extraordinary rise was due to the fact that the day before I had received permission from the governor to speak publicly.
Exactly at twelve o'clock in the afternoon, having inserted wooden spoons into our buttonholes, we appeared at the top of Kuznetsky.
They walked seriously, strictly. No smile.
I just noticed that everyone we met immediately turned behind us, while others ran ahead and asked anxiously:
- Who is this? Crazy? From the wild islands? Circus jockeys? Tamers? Fakirs? Champions French wrestling? Indians? Yogi? Americans? Why is there a dog on this fat man's cheek? Why does this blond have an airplane on his forehead? Why is this big guy wearing a yellow jacket? Hush - they are reading poetry, hush! Are these poets? Can't be! They speak Russian, but nothing is clear. Quiet. All clear. They predict! Idiots! You are the idiots, and they are the opposite! Hurray! Three Eugene Onegins!
Some lady and her daughter we met were so frightened of us that they even crossed themselves:
- Lord have mercy!
The daughter rushed to us:
- What a beauty!
The lady pulled her daughter by the sleeve:
- Tanya, go away, go away. You might get mutilated. We need to call the police. <…>
The crowd grew. The stampede began.
The pavement filled up. The cab drivers couldn't get through. A dense wall of people formed near Neglinnaya.
We felt that an “incident” would break out any minute.
Burliuk barked:
– Before you are brilliant poets, innovators, futurists: Mayakovsky, Kamensky, Burliuk. We are opening an America of new art. Congratulations!
The crowd applauded, whistled, shouted, and was outraged.
And suddenly a long police whistle was heard.
We turned back up.
The policemen, continuing to whistle, dispersed the crowd.
- Separate!
Some girl brought Mayakovsky an orange.
He thanked and ate.
- Eating! Eating! – the mourners whispered throughout the street.
And we walked importantly, reading poetry, although we understood that because of the noise and turmoil it was difficult to hear us...
However, some of the youth and especially students guarded us and bravely repelled the advancing fighters, who hoarsely shouted:
- There's a whole gang of them here! Flayers!<…>
Threading a large bunch of radishes into our coat buttonholes, we left the hotel for the main<…>street.<…>
The restaurant got scared:
- Who is this? Who?
Mayakovsky declared loudly:
- Three Chaliapins!
We were asked to go to a separate room:
- It will be calmer there.
We went out.<…>
We<…>walked through the streets with poems, exciting everyone with their appearance.
And everyone was invited to the evening - “to tea for the futurists.”
Benedict Konstantinovich Livshits:
I don’t remember where we went from the station, where we stopped, or whether we stopped anywhere. My memory has retained only the picture of a complex wandering through the streets and the Kuznetsky Bridge on a sunny, not St. Petersburg-style, warm afternoon.
Having bought two luxurious manillas in straw covers, Volodya invited me to smoke. Accompanied by a crowd of curious people, amazed by the orange jacket and the combination of a top hat and a bare neck, we began to stroll.
Mayakovsky felt like a fish in water.
I admired the equanimity with which he met the gazes fixed on him
Not a hint of a smile.
On the contrary, the gloomy seriousness of a person who, for some unknown reason, is being bothered by unlawful attention.
It was so true that I didn’t know how to deal with him.<…>
A crowd of onlookers grew around us.
To avoid police intervention, they had to turn into one of the side, less crowded streets.
We visited some of Volodin’s acquaintances, then others, again and again, and went everywhere where Mayakovsky considered it necessary to appear in his futuristic splendor. At the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he was still a student, a triumph awaited him: an orange jacket against the backdrop of government walls was an unheard-of challenge to the barracks regime of the school. Mayakovsky was greeted and seen off with applause.
This was not enough for him.
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The capital of the Republic of Tatarstan has lost the main platform for underground and rock bands. Muscovites came there to open an anti-cafe
Today in Kazan, on the site of the once iconic institution “Mayakovsky. Yellow Jacket" opens the Mayakovsky loft - "a creative space for young people," as stated in the press release of the event. As BUSINESS Online found out, the owner of Kofta, Andrei Pokrovsky, due to unprofitability, leased the club to a Moscow company, which decided to reformat the once main rock venue in the capital of Tatarstan. About the heyday and decline of the legend of the late 2000s - in the material of our newspaper.
Today in Kazan, on the site of the once iconic institution “Mayakovsky. Yellow Jacket" Loft "Mayakovsky" opens
“IN FACT, THE CLUB HAS LIVED ALMOST ALL THE TIME ON SUPPORT OF THIRD PARTY BUSINESSES”
Concert promoters working in Kazan have more headaches - the Mayakovsky club is closing. Yellow jacket." However, in this case we're talking about about parting with a real legend of the city’s concert life. Over the 10 years of its existence (in April, “Yellow Jacket” celebrated its first serious anniversary), this site has become iconic in its own way.
The reason for the closure of the club, where legendary Russian rock bands once performed, is banal - unprofitability. The owner of the establishment told BUSINESS Online about this Andrey Pokrovsky, whom our correspondent caught dismantling the establishment’s sign. “The upcoming concerts have been cancelled. We called everyone, apologized, and settled everything with those with whom we had some financial issues,” he reported.
According to Pokrovsky, the concerts held several times a month did not bring any profit, and the rest of the time nothing happened in the establishment. “In fact, the club lived almost all the time on subsidies from third-party businesses,” our interlocutor admitted. According to one of the businessmen, whose office is located nearby, one of the key roles in sad fate“Mayakovsky” was played by a parking lot, which was closed by a nearby construction site. As it turned out, in September one capital company contacted the owner of the Yellow Jacket and offered to rent the non-profitable club. The landlord refused to provide details about the Muscovites and the terms of the deal. “We received an offer, we didn’t refuse,” Pokrovsky answered laconically.
The reason for the closure of the club, where legendary Russian rock bands once performed, is banal - unprofitability
BUSINESS Online found out that the Union Group company acquired the premises for its activities. Her areas of interest include IT and the development of cultural spaces in the format of anti-cafes and co-working spaces - the latter, however, is a somewhat new type of activity for them. Among similar completed projects, Union Group has a loft and a time cafe in Samara called “Concrete Decorative Pot”. Mayakovsky will be reformatted according to the same principle. Yellow Jacket", which will now be called the Mayakovsky loft.
The new tenants decided not to drag their feet and sent out press releases the day before, according to which the opening of the loft would take place this evening. “The Mayakovsky creative space will become a new center of attraction for the creative youth of Kazan. Here, young people will be able not only to take part in creative events, but also to realize their own ideas, act as organizers and ideological inspirers of projects,” the press release says. Hard rock is not in the format of the new curators of the establishment; student and non-alcoholic events will be held here. Entrance to the territory will be free.
THE TOILET IN WHICH MAYAKOVSKY WERE READ
“Of course, it’s hard that this happened, we worked for 10 years, we lasted that long. Of course, we could have held out, but it was getting a little hard to drag this whole thing out. There is a lot of responsibility in organizing concerts - this is a very expensive industry,” Pokrovsky shared.
“When all this began, in 2007, the city, in principle, needed such a site,” recalls the first art director of the restaurant-club in a conversation with BUSINESS Online Alisa Vyatkina, whose name is associated with the heyday of the “Yellow Jacket”. — Not a single club at that time was engaged in importing third-party artists, including foreign ones. All this happened in a disco setting, but there were no club concerts in Kazan. This was probably the reason for the success. We need to add here an unusual interior, design and in general general concept the establishment itself. The “Boomerang” and “Wings” clubs rolled into one had sunk into oblivion at that time, but they still had a narrow format.”
Initially it was assumed that Mayakovsky would be a pretentious restaurant for people of means. However, everything was decided by chance: a concert of the group “Va-Bank” was accidentally held there, and the owners of “Kofta” realized that concerts could be held in the premises. Unusual interior, good cuisine at that time, an intriguing name - all this played into the establishment. Even going to the toilet was a real highlight here. There, poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky were constantly heard from the loudspeaker.
At that time, Kazan was hungry for a party place that could unite a creative, diverse audience. Eg, Sergei Shnurov, then Leningrad, who had just dissolved, gave his first concert in Kazan precisely at Kofta, arriving there with his “Ruble”. And when Lyapis Trubetskoy came to the capital of Tatarstan, the club could not accommodate everyone. Plus, various local festivals began to be organized there - from Harokata to a concert in support of the fight against diabetes, where local groups could perform. A crowd of its own formed around the establishment. According to the recollections of one of the club’s managers, sometimes things got ridiculous: one of the businessmen came to negotiate about holding a corporate event, made a deposit, but when he saw that goths were going to the concert, he took the deposit and abandoned this idea.
Such youth activity could not pass by the authorities. In 2008, the management of the establishment received a prosecutor’s order on the inadmissibility of violations federal law“On countering extremist activities.” It seemed suspicious to the prosecutor's office that people who were members of informal youth movements, and simply goths, punks and skinheads, were gathering at Mayakovsky, to which the club workers then rightly noted that all of the above-mentioned informals simply could not gather in one place, otherwise a fight would begin. The authorities' claims seemed to be limited to this.
In the first years of Mayakovsky’s work, this was the main and, perhaps, the only place for non-commercial music and the gathering of the corresponding audience
“THOSE WHO ONCE VISITED THIS CLUB HAVE ALREADY GROWN OUT OF THE “JACKET” TODAY
In the first years of Mayakovsky’s work, this was the main and, perhaps, the only place for non-commercial music and the gathering of the corresponding audience. Musicians of all formats and ages performed there: from representatives of the Kazan indie scene to such artists as “AuktYon”, “Kalinov Most”, Brazzaville, “Markscheider Kunst”, Billy's Band, John Forte, Alina Orlova, Sergei Babkin.. .
“At that time, the most underground, creative, interesting youth of our city gathered in the club. Over the course of a year or two, the public simply began to trust us, even if we brought unknown musical groups. People, not knowing what they were singing or what kind of music they were playing, simply came, trusting our taste. And there was a certain intimacy in this, because we knew our regular guests by sight. And we are still friends with many of them,” continues Vyatkina.
The club also gathered Tatar contemporary performers under its roof, such as Zulya Kamalova And Mubai. Even the prima of the Tatar pop scene came to the latter’s concert Hania Farhi, the club format of parties was not alien to her then either.
Nevertheless, the club gradually began to lose its popularity among the Kazan public. The leapfrog with constantly changing art managers only contributed to this. There were fewer and fewer concerts by visiting stars of the alternative scene; only local events remained. It was felt that the club needed an update, however, the owners of the establishment apparently could not understand what it should be.
“Unfortunately, everything has its beginning and end. Probably, the fact that Mayakovsky was not updated, no rebranding was carried out, influenced its closure. And those who once visited this club have now grown out of “Kofta”. I would like to hope that a new venue will appear, but now, it seems to me, the public is fed up and a lot of establishments have opened. And perhaps there is no such need for club concerts. Everything goes into a smaller format or into a larger one,” says the first art director of “Yellow Jacket”.
“THE PLACE WAS UNCONDITIONALLY ICONIC AND UNIQUE IN ITS NICHE”
BUSINESS Online experts are unanimous: the closure of the Yellow Jacket is a serious blow to the concert life of Kazan.
Leonid Baryshev- Head of the tour and concert agency "ArtOtdel":
— I’m actually very sorry that the Yellow Jacket closed, because underground bands, rock bands that can’t afford large halls, in fact, they were there, they performed there. Young people came there, listened to these commands, and spent time there. And I don’t even know where they will go now... It’s unclear where. Because there are no sites for them in the city. That is, we do not have such clubs with a capacity of 400–600 seats, with equipment, sound, and a stage. Let’s say, in “Salt,” where an audience of similar tastes can gather, it simply won’t fit.
Anton Salakaev- leader of VIA "Volga-Volga":
— Over the last decade, or even more, this is one of the best venues, which has been promoted by the performances of various interesting underground rock bands and festivals. To be honest, the sound there was not the best in the city, and this was probably due to the configuration of the club itself, but the club played a serious role in the life of Volga-Volga. This year we are celebrating our 20th anniversary and are making short videos about iconic places, which influenced our formation: of course, “Mayakovsky” is also mentioned there.
I not only played there myself, but also often attended concerts of bands that I love. I saw “AuktYon” and “Trubetskoy’s Lyapis” at these venues. “Kofta” has always had a close, kind, homely, I would say, even kitchen-like atmosphere, in contrast to large venues. And it will be difficult to quickly find an alternative to Mayakovsky in Kazan in the near future. It had everything: location and a good stage for small rock concerts. Just in last years the guys needed good manager, which would continue to bring interesting bands. It seems to me that these are miscalculations in marketing. But at the moment I don’t see a serious alternative to this site. There are clubs that could take over the functions of Mayakovsky, but so far they do not have such zeal. These are either commercial establishments, the owners of which think only about profit, or they are clubs, semi-restaurant options, which seem to position themselves as an alternative place, but have done nothing to gather young groups under their roof.
As long as there are young people who play and listen to rock, we cannot say that this trend is dead. It is clear that rock cannot fight rap battles; it has faded into the background. Perhaps this movement is not so strong as an ideology. But due to the closure of this kind of venues, rock will die. Nevertheless, in Kazan there is a large army of people who want to go to live performances by bands. If any of the owners of the premises approached me in terms of help in promoting a new place, I would be happy to give a couple of free concerts.
Dmitry Zeleny— art director of Rockstar Bar (former art director of Mayakovsky):
— I worked at Mayakovsky in 2012–2014. The closure of the establishment is a tragedy for Kazan, because the place, of course, was iconic and unique in its niche. There is no alternative to the “Yellow Jacket” in Kazan. There were no suitable venues where you can hold a concert of a group that gathers up to 500 people before. Now, as a promoter, I am approached by groups that had concerts planned at Mayakovsky, but I simply cannot physically do them at my Rockstar Bar.
Kazan has lost (it is unknown for how long) many artists who simply have nowhere else to play in the city. Some venues are too big, some bars are too small. When something will open and who will do it, I can’t even imagine. There are, of course, the Hermitage and Korston, but let’s say I can’t hold a concert for the Distemper group at the Hermitage because the venue is too expensive to rent. As a result, the concert will not only be unprofitable, I will simply go into a monstrous loss. And in general, holding a concert for 250–300 people in a hall for 5 thousand people is ridiculous and ugly.
Not only underground bands performed at Mayakovsky. Various performers came - from rap to hard rock. Who has not performed there during the existence of the club - from monsters like “25/17”, “The King and the Jester” and “Lyapis Trubetskoy” to unknown underground poets! It seems to me that the shortage of such places is explained by the fact that Kazan is not a fatal city. I have more than once encountered a situation when a concert of some group was organized in Kazan and the next day, as part of the tour, it went to, say, Izhevsk, where the population is half that of the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. But at the same time, the audience at the concert of any group was two to three times larger than ours. Moreover, they didn’t make any posters there, but there was “Our Radio”. Now we have this radio station, but the club is no longer there.
Evgeny Vasiliev- founder of the concert agency MAD DOD Concert Agency:
— For the underground there was and is a tiny club called Amnesia, but Mayakovsky is still for more serious groups. In general, mid-level concert organizers have nothing to do, because there is no alternative venue for them. It is necessary to build a new establishment for 600–800 people, with good sound and light. And this requires serious investments - I think about 10 million rubles to do everything well. But the problem is not even about money, but about the fact that “business in Russian” expects quick returns. That is, after investing, everyone wants to quickly receive excess profits. Such a story will not work with the club.