Amazing Russian Collection of Social Anthropology

I would love to see this... From the Washington Post comes the story of artist Vladimir Arkhipov and his collection: bq. Handmade Versions Of Soviet History An Artist Shows Off Makeshift Objects People Used to Cope With Shortages bq. MOSCOW -- For as long as Vladimir Arkhipov could remember, he lived surrounded by his father's homemade contraptions: blinking Christmas tree lights, when there weren't any to be bought back in the 1960s, and a jury-rigged radio receiver, so the family could huddle in the kitchen and listen to the forbidden Voice of America. bq. There was even a television antenna made out of unwanted forks that were purchased only because his grandmother was at the store, the Soviet Union was collapsing and there was nothing else for sale. bq. But it took Arkhipov decades to realize that his father's ingenious solutions were in fact invaluable artifacts of Soviet culture, the private side of life in a country where consumer shortage was an everyday state of affairs. His revelation came a decade ago, when he went to a friend's dacha and found himself hanging his coat on a hook carefully fashioned from an old, bristleless toothbrush. bq. He saw the strange, humble object -- and recognized a genre. bq. Today, he is Russia's leading -- and, as far he knows, only -- collector of these unique inventions, with more than 1,000, ranging from a homemade tractor to a tiny bathtub plug made from a boot heel. Each one is a small essay in adaptation. And more: bq. At 42, the engineer-turned-artist works full time on his unusual form of social anthropology, collecting not only the objects themselves but also interviews with their creators. His book, "Born Out of Necessity," has just been published with a grant from the Ford Foundation; he exhibits his finds in Russia and wherever he is invited in Western Europe but has not found a single museum in Russia willing to help gather what he calls "living history." bq. It is not just individual quirks but political realities that his objects document, Arkhipov said. He connects his collection directly to the individual Russian experience in an oppressive state. In such a place, he argues, "each person who can make something with his hands prefers to make something small and concrete rather than uniting with others to change their lives. Everyone still struggles with their own problems alone." bq. In Soviet times, the centrally planned economy begat chronic shortages and perpetual consumer angst -- a situation where a missing spare part could become a crisis for a factory and individual needs never registered in the deep recesses of the bureaucracy. With no obvious way to change the system, individual Soviets did what they could to live within it, and at-home inventors created a thousand items missing from the stores. And more: bq. Take the tiny device known as a "conman" that Arkhipov pulled from one of the dusty bins in his studio. It is, in effect, a homemade plug, meant to convert a light-bulb socket into an electrical outlet. "Everything," Arkhipov said, "is related to the history of the country." bq. After the destruction of World War II, there were chronic power shortages. In villages, electrical outlets were forbidden and people were allowed just one light bulb per house, to be turned on a few hours a day. Dictator Joseph Stalin even decreed jail terms for installing banned outlets, Arkhipov said, "but still people needed electrical sockets." The article closes with: bq. Arkhipov said he is sure that sooner or later Russia will stop producing objects that reflect its communist past. Maybe then, Arkhipov said with a laugh, he will go ahead and create his own handmade "utopia" -- living entirely with the creations he has collected. bq. After all, he said: "I already have a handmade refrigerator, a washing machine, a telephone, different kinds of furniture. A handmade paraglider, a boat, a car, a tractor. . . . Toys you can play with, instruments, tools, a hammer, a drill, a screwdriver. Everything one needs to live with." I really hope that this exhibit tours the US.