It was the winter of 1990 and I was living and working in Moscow on my book, Moscow Revealed. Historically, it was a great time to be there as it was a time of great change within the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and head of State of the USSR until its collapse in 1991.
It was a time of adventure starting with the winter drive from London with my assistant, Octavia, in my Citroen BX estate car that was so laden down with kit that the wheels appeared almost at right angles to the body. Delayed at Dover by one of the worst Chanel storms for years and then on through France, Belgium and West Germany, before entering East Germany, Poland and Belarus, all of which formed part of the Soviet Union at that time. Strict border crossings, rain, storms and blizzards together with smashing the front wheels of the car in a large hole in the road between Minsk and Moscow, didn’t deter us on completing our journey, although looking back I wondered how we survived in tact!
Many people were instrumental in making the project in Moscow a success and I will try to mention all of them as the pictures in this series develop, but instrumental to getting access to many of the buildings were the ambassador at the time, Sir Rodric, and his wife, Lady Gillian Braithwaite, who were more than generous with their time and endeavours.
The theme of the project was interiors, many of which were unknown and definitely hidden from view. The entrance to the Igumnov Mansion, which is now the residence of the French Ambassador, was one of the first interiors that we were to shoot. It was an amazing hallway and not a single surface was left unadorned in the most elaborate and varied decoration. Imagine, in the late 19th century, arriving home in your troika in the early hours from a party, with the snow swirling around and perhaps the worse for wear, and bursting into this blaze of colour and decoration. I always imagined it like a scene out of a novel by Pasternak or Tolstoy and calling out to the servants to prepare a hot bath and provide more vodka!
After the Revolution the mansion became a medical institute and worker’s club, until 1938 when it was given to the French as their embassy. This was the fate of many of the great Moscow mansions and it was beneficial in the sense that these foreign delegations maintained and preserved some of the best architectural examples from 18th and 19th centuries, while many of the others, given over to the ‘Party’ after the Revolution fell into disrepair and eventual demolition.
From a technical point of view I shot nearly everything on my Sinar P2 5 x 4 camera. To light the hallway I had one Broncolor P8 set up in the lower hallway and another lighting the upper floor. These were fitted with large soft boxes that gave a fantastic spread of light and were extremely accurate. This was important as in nearly every shot the light had to be built up and looking in my daybook from this shoot I see that I needed 8 flashes at full power from each flash to illuminate the hallway. Besides the amount of flashes I had to work out the ambient light coming in through the window if these were not to be burnt out or underexposed. In this case I see that it took 8 exposures of 2 seconds at an aperture of f22 to balance the daylight with the flash. The tungsten lights on the ceiling and walls were turned off after 4 exposures so that they did not burn out either. I used Kodak Ektachrome Type B film. This is balanced for tungsten light and did not suffer from reciprocity failure like the daylight version. However, it meant that I either had to use a correction filter on the lens or gel the lights.
I returned to Moscow in 2005 on a shoot for the BBC and I have never known anywhere change out of all recognition. Many of the great buildings that I had photographed were under threat of ‘property developers’. Examples of extreme wealth were being paraded unabashed, while people who had fallen through the ‘system’ were now begging on the street. Of course there was great poverty in the Soviet era, it’s just that it was hidden from view!
This shot is available as a limited edition print. There will only be 50 copies. Each one will be signed and numbered by John Freeman and will be accompanied by a certificate of authentication together with a unique hologram on the reverse of the print. The overall paper size measures 483 X 329 mm in this edition. Each print is printed on 100% 308 gsm rag paper and is wood pulp and acid free and has archival permanence.
The cost of each print is £250.00. However, as the edition sells out the price increases i.e. after ten prints are sold the price will be £300.00 for numbers 11 – 20. For numbers 21 – 30 the price will be £375.00 per print. For numbers 31 – 40 the cost will be £475.00 per print. For numbers 41 – 50 the cost will be £650.00 per print. The next available print is 1/50.
