Erde (German - land) is the name of a desktop folder, in which Konstantin Krikunov kept his photos.

The German name is because he learnt German at school and at university and liked to enter a precise German word into his speech.

In the photos there are stones, sand, boulders, nature and various results of human activity, such as garbage, butts, spots of petrol, crushed children’s toys, colored plastic, wraps of candies, cocktail straws, stiff rags, etc., in other words, what a man sees when he’s looking under his feet.

Kostya said the following about those photos: as if a Mars rover crawls on the ground and scans its surface, and everything gets in focus, without distinction, there is no aesthetics and artistry, no symbolism, just as it is: rubbish on the ground.

Senseless beautiful and ugly objects and artifacts are not connected to one another, they are anonymous, temporary, created by chance and by chaos.

He took photos on the Valdai and in St Petersburg, and in Egypt, in winter and in summer; the season did not matter, as well as location and circumstances - what happened to the author “before” and “after” – he made a photo and went his own way, and the artifact remained where it was and glinted in the sun, by the way just like primeval nature without a man.

From the start Kostya kept on taking photos to see them himself and show to his friends where he had been and what he had seen, and later, when the book started to take shape, it wanted the photographs.

In intention, photos should have existed in the book on their own, not as a compliment or an illustration to prose. Just the ground, which can be examined like this, with a kid’s eye, who sees something beautiful in broken glass and color plastic, with the eye of an Earth rover, which transmits the picture somewhere to other planets.

In Borey all photos will by lying on the floor – according to Kostya’s own plan – and the eye’s movement down, under your feet will give a chance to become a Mars rover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Konstantin Krikunov is a born reporter and poet.

Graduated from St Petersburg State University, Journalism Faculty.

Attended Viktor Sosnora’s literature society.

Worked in “Chas Pik”, “Izvestiya”, “Argumenty I Facty".

In 2004 he created and edited an independent newspaper “Khronika”. It was new journalism, St Petersburg in the world context.

Already in Armavir his first book of poems was published, “A Calendar With A Crow”, then another one in St Petersburg, “Glass Is A Bird With 12 Wings”, as well as a volume of prose “You”, consisting of reports, interviews, essays.

Rid Grachyov, Konstantin Simun, Shevtchuk, Temirkanov, Rastropovitch, Piontek, Eltsin, Garkusha – he collected St Petersburg voices of the 90s and 2000s into a book of persons and a book of the big city.