Art Labyrinth... a community, organisation, concept, club etc from Chisinau. today I've visited for the first time (shame on me) their premises and i must say that so far they are the coolest in Chisinau...
it's located in an almost abandoned building of a museum... old reused furniture, paintings, masks, scented sticks, relaxing music (today they had a valtari film experiment group watching), tea (serve yourself, no price, donations are welcome)
“Beware, it will be even colder inside the building than it is out here”.
Somehow I couldn’t quite get the logic of this as I stood, teeth chattering and knees knocking, on the steps of a grand ruin near the centre of Chisinau, capital of the republic of Moldova. Daniel Schmidt my guide had just walked me around the perimeter of a whole city block, once occupied entirely by the Moldovan national museum of ethnography. Apart from a grand Turkish/Islamic-styled main block which still functioned as a museum (pictured below), the whole vast complex seemed empty, and like it had been abandoned for a seriously long time. The roof was broken in many places and shrubberies were gaining hold and making a decent living amongst cracks in the masonry.
As I shivered pathetically on the pot-holed pavement of Strada Alexei Şciusev, the only source of heat seemed to radiate from Daniel himself. He was almost levitating with energy and excitement for what he was about to show me. Snow was piled high on the roadsides and people bustled past in huddled bundles. A milky sun was setting and Chisinau was hunkered down awaiting the end of a long winter. I’d only been in the country for a couple of hours, for the first time in my life, but already Chisinau was revealing its character. Aside from a few vestiges of Ottoman rule, the streetscapes were largely Russian (Tsarist), Soviet and post-Soviet. Little sign here of central European influences. What threw me though was the lilting conversations of the locals, which were distinctly Latin, deriving from Romanian. This combined with the exceptional number of mature trees along every boulevard, hints that before long this place will rapidly warm up and take on the character of south European city.
But street café society beneath the welcome shade of plane trees seemed a world away as we heaved open the museum door and tentatively stepped inside. Daniel had not been exaggerating - it was like entering an ice cave. It seemed as if the walls were a battery for storing the cold, ready to release it directly into the bones of anyone foolish enough to enter. Normally I approach strange and unusual buildings with eager anticipation, but this time I was struck by how the cold seemed to sap my enthusiasm and replace it with dread. I had to snap out of this – urban exploration is supposed to be my thing, after all. Fortunately Daniel had zeal enough for us both.
He walked me down a long gloomy corridor and then I had the sense of a great space opening up, though it was now totally dark. As he opened some of the shuttered windows I gasped, realising we were in a vast and splendid hall. Opulent crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling and the walls were upholstered and hand-painted as if no expense had been spared. One imagined the pampered elite of pre-revolutionary Moldovan society must have once paraded themselves here.
All this started me reflecting on what must have gone on around this building since it was in its pomp. When the Soviet Union broke up Moldova was a comfortable-ish small republic with a productive wine and agriculture sector and a developed industrial base stretched out along the Dniestr river valley. Sadly, though, it’s been particularly ill-served by the political and economic ructions of the last quarter century. 1990s Moldova entered into the highly unfamiliar experience of national independence and self-determination, and a large section of the powerful Russian-speaking community decided they didn’t fancy it one bit. Yearning for mother Russia, but cut off from it by the vast bulk of Ukraine, the rebels set up their own tin-pot state. They got the backing of Moscow and set up Transnistria, taking all of Moldova’s industry with them. Today virtually no world leader aside from Putin recognises this bizarre Ruritanian klepto-statelet, but it has done a pretty good job of trying to drag the rest of Moldova backwards with it.
Anyway, back to the ruins. It was soon obvious that they were not ruins at all and that someone was taking care of this place and, more than that, using it. We groped down more corridors and through antechambers each grandly decorated but stripped of any furniture, but there were clear signs of activity, with a drum –kit here or a stage set there. I was now disoriented and almost rigid with cold but then Daniel pulled back a heavy drape and a great rush of warmth hit me full in the face. The room we were stepping into was covered from floor to ceiling with paintings, murals, posters, fabrics and masks from various parts of the world. The next room had a stage where a band was setting up for a gig and beyond that room after room which were occupied by artists, as ateliers. We were in the home of Art Labyrinth, the collective of artists who have taken occupation of this sad old building and breathed new life into it (pictured below with Daniel enthusing).
Art Labyrinth was set up in 2008 to be the first place where anyone in Moldova could turn if they have an interest in contemporary art, alternative music, and world cultures. They set themselves up as a counter to both the post-Soviet arts establishment and the new wave of Western consumption culture which has finally arrived in Chisinau. As I subsequently discovered, Moldovans are not reticent in expressing themselves culturally and there is still a very lively and diverse folk culture based around the old Soviet network of village Dom Kultura. But Art Labyrinth is (literally) the hot spot for people wanting to take a more critical and divergent cultural path. I was inspired by their determination to challenge their circumstances and to connect internationally, despite the sense of isolation that has been imposed upon Moldova by East/ West power politics.
Finally we took our leave and stepped out blinking into the daylight, and I realised we were in a wide courtyard with trees, and buildings in various states of collapse. Part of it looked like a peasant’s back yard with cast off wooden carts and rusting trucks and other detritus stacked up in archaeological layers. Elsewhere it was more like the inner sanctum of a palace, and what had clearly once been elaborate gardens, Italianate pavilions and genteel promenades were now slowly crumbling back into the earth. Bizarrely the place was scattered with large cages which contained improbably exotic birds of yellow, red and iridescent blue-green. It turned out these were the last survivors of a large menagerie assembled by the Soviet authorities for the pleasure of Chisinau residents. A melancholic man with a bushy moustache appeared and scattered seed. Apparently he is still given a stipend to keep them alive.
Rumour has it that the state has finally rediscovered its neglected asset – and sold the whole site to a foreign buyer. So it may not be the hub of Moldovan alternative culture and urban activism for much longer. Artists as the harbingers and then the victims of gentrification may be a new phenomenon for Chisinau but is an old old story, which is starting to sweep through the former Soviet republics. I may not encounter Art Labyrinth again in this particular location but I’ve no doubt there will be plenty of other forgotten corners of splendid dilapidation for them in in this friendly and under-appreciated city.
