grains

February 2024

On February 16th Alexei Navalny was killed in prison. February 24th marks the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Israel-Gaza war is still ongoing. It was especially hard to make sense of the reality this month.

Writing about grief is confusing and overwhelming. Instead I’ll quote Gosha Tcherednitchenko’s Remembering Alexei Navalny:

This was a completely new feeling for me: a person speaking not the language of the soulless system, but in a rather human way, voicing understandable human values that I felt close to. A person who tried to improve life in his own country, in his own city. What a shock: it turned out that there were people who were trying to turn Russia into a country where one could try to build a life, into a country where there might be a place for me, as well.

I did what I could: I signed up as a volunteer, and started helping writing code for some software used for canvassing. Soon, the election campaign wrapped up, and although my contribution most likely did not affect the outcome in any meaningful way, this became a momentous experience for me. Like for many others, participating in Navalny’s campaign was my first involvement in public life in my home country, and, for the first time, I felt like I could actually drive some change by applying my efforts, like I had some agency over what was happening. I will always be grateful to Navalny for this.

I never experienced this sense of agency, even in emigration, but in everything that Alexei did and said, there was hope. On February 16th hundreds of people came to the square in front of the Russian embassy to remember Alexei. When we joined with the crowd, I felt numb and the hope wasn't there, but I am determined to regain it. Rest in peace.

The month has started on a much happier note though. Our friends Igor and Vanya came from the UK for a few days. It was loads of fun, late night kitchen talks, and a couple Tetris Effect sessions in-between. I’m a bit proud of having introduced Igor to bouldering on his previous visit, as he caught the bug properly and trained regularly ever since. We went to Berta together and he’s been cracking routes beyond my level effortlessly, giving me the best motivation to hit the gym more often.

They were not the only guests this month, my mom stayed with us for a week. It's been over a year since we saw each other last time, and I used this chance to interview her. To my surprise, she was eager to share and didn’t mind the voice recorder. We talked for 3-4 hours daily about her youth and my childhood, and it had a therapeutic effect on both of us.

A cooking surface filled with utensils full of pirozhki. A pair of female hands flipping the ones being fried in a hot pan.

Between the interviews we cooked tasty vegan food. Her little side-project was to pass on the family recipe of pirozhki to me, in all of their greasy, oily glory. I have documented it to the smallest detail and it will show up here as soon as I create a recipe section (long overdue).

Even though we've spent most of the time at home or in the neighbourhood, there were a couple ventures outside: to VEKTOR, an audio-visual exhibition at Kraftwerk, and to the newly opened fotografiska museum.

I enjoyed VEKTOR and would love to visit again. A giant empty space of the former power station showcased a choreography of 50-something lasers synced with music. The whole experience was hypnothic, and made my mom genuinely happy.

This little project – I mean grains – went a full circle from being inspired by the Merveilles Webring to becoming a part of it. A webring is a simple catalog of websites that link to each other. You can explore it by using the randomizer.

I've added lots of new pages in the last month and following the updates and navigating it became a bit hard even for me. It is a good problem to have though, as a couple month ago there wasn't even a single page. A solution would likely be a mix of an RSS and a newsletter.

Overworld, a game for Playdate I am working on, has been on a backburner ever since I bumped into performance issues. What a surprise: computers can be slow! Artem has been a tremendous help in pinpointing the issues and he even prototyped a solution both in C and Lua, but I still need to pick up on his work.

My friend Sasha played an hour-long jungle set at Kirche von Unten. Just seeing him play was already inspiring but the place made it even more special. KvU has a reach history spanning over three decades. It is a punk venue and a community center promoting sports, music, social and political activism. Drugs and strong alcohol are prohibited here.

We've been purposefully exploring the bass music scene recently, and a week later we went to a Keep Hush party. It was the first time I've heard UK Garage in a club, and I went proper nuts when PJ Bridger dropped my all-time favorite "Has it come to this?".

A woman looking through the window into a rainy street, her reflection can be seen on the surface of the glass. There's a lonely tourist on a pedestrian crossing and a bus is visible behind them.

Yasna had to do some things in Hamburg, and I tagged along to keep her company. It’s a short train ride suitable for a day trip, which makes for a good opportunity to come often and explore this lively city one piece at a time.

On the first trip it rained the entire day, though we managed to enjoy a few dishes with buckwheat granola at ÆNDRÈ and visit Fabrique im Gängeviertel on our way back. Fabrique is a former factory building that offers space to artists, activists and social projects. It has been saved from turning into a commercial real estate at the end of 2000s.

The second time round we stayed for a few nights and explored Altona, Karolinenviertel and some corners of Schanzenviertel. Luckily, the sun decided to keep us company this time, although we’ve been told it’s an anomaly. I loved the vinyl selection at Otaku Records and the vegan sabich at Carmel.

This month I joined the c-base crew. In case you never heard of it, c-base is a space station that crashed into earth 4.5 billion years ago. With its workshops, machinery and an unlimited supply of club mate, it doubles as a hackspace and a meeting place for all kinds of nerd lifeforms. The member area offers a few maker workshops, a soundlab, and a common area with a bar and a sound system hosts numerous events. I haven’t yet learned all the dark corners but I could give you a tour if you're interested.

February means hunting for Berlinale tickets. I watched Architecton and some of the shorts (Remains of the Hot Day and Baldilocks were great) but missed all the documentaries.

Architecton is the most beautiful movie about rocks. It is also a study of sustainability of modern architecture where drone footage of the aftermath of the 2023 earthquake in Turkey and the war in Ukraine is juxtaposed with ancient temple ruins. It was truly stunning to watch it on a huge screen, although the punchline was delivered in a rather pompous and blunt way.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to the packed screenings of No other land and 20 days in Mariupol.

I started reading “I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country” by Elena Kostyuchenko, another survivor of Putin's poisoning. It's a compilation of her published pieces for Novaya Gazeta with each chapter revealing a part of her personal story. The book is full of empathy and courage.