Exhibition “Russia” at VDNKh – personal impression
I had been planning to visit the “Russia” exhibition for a long time, and now I finally made it out. Almost six hours of viewing the exhibition - I won’t say that it’s downright meticulous, but I think this is more or less enough to allow us to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of this event.
Entry
I expected this to be a PR event, the purpose of which would be primarily to impress the public with tricks, colors and scale more than with content.
However, I was pleasantly surprised by both the abundance of the audience (on a weekday), its gender and age diversity, and the generally positive and relaxing, I would even say, sometimes informal, mood, which turned out to be quite unusual for events in recent years in Moscow.
I started writing the article after the first run, but then I realized that it was worth giving such a large-scale event a second chance and more coverage, and I had to do a second run, during which a lot of things were thoroughly reworked and overall it came out somehow lighter, or something... .
But in order: in my opinion, what was good and what was not so good.
Of the minuses
I would highlight one of the problems of the exhibition as a rather, um, complicated system of numbering and arrangement of exhibitions.
It turned out to be not so easy to find these exhibitions at the exhibition - they are located both inside prefabricated structures (quite convenient for this format, by the way), and inside stationary pavilions - and often there is nothing on the pavilion indicating that there is an element of the exhibition " exhibition”, rather than its classic filling or restaurant.
If I were the organizers, I would have worked on the issue of signage stands and the design and size of identification marks on objects, so that it would be expressive and visible from afar.
Generally speaking, it would be possible to use the potential of laser or conventional paint-based advertising on asphalt - this would also be a very fresh and useful solution for such a large event.
It was not so easy to understand the boundaries and extent of the current exhibition on the ground - there is some confusion with the location of some exhibitions among others, not always, let’s say, connected.
For example, I found a small stand of Rosrezerv at the “Sports and Family” exhibition, while the VDNH website swore that there would be almost a separate pavilion on this topic. But it really doesn’t matter – it’s a very, very nice little exhibition with positive, helpful people.
Another problematic point - although I understand that times are crazy now, this is the security organization. It’s worth speaking separately here.
The key problem of the security organization
I was amused by three-meter wooden stepladders with people sitting on them armed with megaphones. I don’t know what contribution this makes to real security - it will be very interesting to listen to the opinions of those readers who have also been and seen it.
The organization of security inside the expositions seemed somewhat strange to me - in each pavilion or exposition (even in fairly small ones, such as the VKontakte exposition) there was a separate metal detector and several security officers at the entrance, and each time everything, as they say, was new.
Instead of giving those watching the expo some kind of bracelet tickets at the entrance and scanning them with their belongings there - and then simply letting them pass between exhibitions with a minimum of security forces, they stupidly installed metal detectors in each exhibition object.
That is, if you are with a backpack or a camera - in each exposure you will have to remove the backpack and the camera, pass it through the conveyor, take out the keys, complain to the guards about the adamantium skeleton and the abundance of piercings in different parts of the body - and I’ll tell you honestly, this is my first time The trip was somewhat spoiled by the fact that I took a DSLR and a bag for it.
However, all this in no way detracts from the service of the people who ensure security itself - thanks to them for that! But in some places there is still a feeling that it could have been organized more conveniently and at lower costs - for example, by better grouping the exhibition zones.
Back to the cons
Some zones seemed to me to be deprived of the attention of the organizers, I will mention this below, others, on the contrary, could have been decorated beautifully and with good guides - but, alas, their actual content was simply incredibly boring or insignificant. Sometimes these voids in large pavilions could strongly contrast with the filled areas. Not all exhibitors approached it with zest and enthusiasm!
Let my readers not think that my goal is to criticize this event in any way; in the pluses, I will definitely mention the positives - but in the minus section, I simply have to say that sparkling LCD displays, no matter how you bend them or where you shove them, do not make sense on their own.
The light-display tunnel at the beginning of the exhibition is really beautiful, perhaps a provincial resident would be much more impressed by this than me, I personally was simply impressed.
However, later this trick with an abundance of large screens hiding, in general, sometimes a very meager essence, was repeated several times, and this was somewhat overdone. In some places it was possible to get away with a good old stand; by the way, a number of exhibition authors very elegantly and creatively approached the use of projectors instead of LCDs, for which many thanks to them!
The “Made by Us” pavilion has a very strong and beautiful exhibition, but the organizers missed some things at the very beginning: a large area is occupied by the “Heart of Russian Industry” installation, which cannot do anything other than beat – however, its very presence does not fit very well into the the adjacent installation is a corridor with screens on which various Russian scientists of the past, performed by actors, talk about their contributions and inventions.
To be honest, there is a congestion in this corridor because you need to stand in certain places in front of the screen to hear the sound, and the main stream of people is literally rushing through you, mothers with strollers or small children, school excursions and just large people. They also poke you in the back with phones, because otherwise you can’t take a picture of the screen in the corridor.
Not very convenient, in short. But my first visit hurt my eyes quite a bit - I can’t imagine what’s going on in this zone on the weekend.
A certain problem with the entire exhibition is the lack of high-quality standardization of explanations for exhibits and equipment. Simple red and white frames with black contrasting text are no longer “ice”, and yes, maybe someone will say that I am being critical, but for older people this is quite inconvenient.
The purpose of some objects is not indicated at all or is minimal - thanks to the wonderful and friendly guides who were nearby and clarified this or that question.
It was often very difficult to understand what they were about inside the exhibitions, and the lack of clear and noticeable signs was not the biggest problem.
In one of the pavilions I came across an exhibition, which at first I took for an exhibition of vapes or tourist services - it was such a semi-cave space with beautiful, relaxing lighting, artificial plants climbing near the ceiling, ottomans in the corners (some people with books were actually relaxing there or phones in an embrace), however, the charming girl caretaker surprised me a lot by saying that this was an exposition of the Ensky metallurgical plant. That time when you think you're being trolled, but you're not.
It’s a shame to say - but even my inquisitive mind could not find absolutely nothing inside connecting the contents with metallurgy. Perhaps I didn't search well.
The curators of a number of exhibitions could not explain to me more or less clearly what was there, what it was about and why. And there were no hints in the content.
But I suspect that this is not their fault - this is, in principle, an organizational and semantic problem. For what purposes something is being shown and to whom, it was just as difficult to understand in some places.
Sometimes there was a feeling that you should somehow see it from the edge, marvel, notice the nameplate or brand logo (which, by the way, is not always far away) and diffuse further with a stable feeling of abundance in the loins.
Exhibitions with more or less substantive and interesting content are critically poorly saturated with caretakers who can tell anything about it. At least, taking into account the significant numbers and interest of people.
For example, next to the stand demonstrating neural interface technologies, robotic manipulation of micro-drone (the copter, offhand, has the diameter of the cut of a small orange), there was not a single person who could tell me at least a little about who has been doing this, for how long, and answer a few more simple questions.
This extremely interesting stand simply stood at the junction of the tourist exposition of some sanatorium and stands for checking blood pressure, vision and heartbeat, and above it hung a rather large LCD, playing extremely uninformative demonstration videos on the contents of the stand.
It would seem that this is the future, some details of our promising directions - but, as in that meme with the anteater: “Go away, there’s nothing to see here.”
A row of space was occupied by sales and something hard-won and trivial (but some people liked it, so this may be subjective).
In the VKontakte pavilion, I found a lot of excellent and positive people who created a cozy atmosphere, but in the contents, except for a small bench, I remembered absolutely nothing, except for the abundance of LCDs and figurines at the entrance.
The two lower floors of the Atom pavilion were basically packed with nothing. Literally.
Although below I will note the rather strong aesthetics of the pavilion itself inside and even these two empty zones - but the semantic content contrasts sharply with the available space.
Prices at VDNKh. There is so much pain and heaviness in these three words - everything is bad and very bad with prices. Pies and tea for 200-250 will be in my nightmares for a long time. But there was a pleasant exception - more about it below.
Of the benefits
The main advantage is that it is bright, stylish in places, and the soundtrack is often chosen to suit the images.
The visual itself sometimes deserves special praise - for example, the 360-degree cinema in “Made by Us” is definitely worth a visit; in addition to it, allusions to a similar approach occur a couple more times, and each time it is beautiful, atmospheric and appropriate.
There is also a book with folk crafts nearby – the exhibit is interesting (a projector fills the pages of the book depending on the numbering), and the guides tell interesting stories. The photo will not convey the feeling of how well executed this idea is!
Sometimes there were very beautiful and bright solutions for combining models and transparent LCDs - for example, I really remember the site where they showed two different methods of cleaning industrial air pollution.
The stands are very well made, demonstrating modern 3D design technologies; they also tell us quite well about our successes in this area and provide information about the developers of the software product within the country.
There are quite a few models (unfortunately, almost no mechanized ones) reproducing anything technical - to a person at least a little experienced in the fields, this may seem somewhat superficial, but from what I saw, the children really enjoyed looking at it all.
I liked the fact that a number of things inside “Made by Us” (mostly related to LCD installations with interactive content) had a fairly detailed performance characteristics description - turbines, solar panels, powerful windmills.
It warmed my soul that we were starting to produce this, although in a number of cases in the exhibitions the carts still ran a little ahead (the same MS-21 plane). Special thanks to the guides of this exhibition for their in-depth and motivated interest in their topic - it’s really great when a person can tell you in an interesting and detailed way, and you feel that he cares about it.
They were honored to set up booths with really cheap and tasty things for the event. Yes, they are mostly located not so far from the entrance (I found several in front of the Friendship of Peoples fountain) - but the prices there are pure communism, in principle, and something completely anomalous compared to the same prices at the VDNKh kiosks in particular.
The author takes off his hat to the one who came up with this (low prices) and pushed it - because for most of his adult life at such events he met only an undisguised “grabbing salesman” with Olympic prices for the most ordinary things.
People in the queues (small ones, by the way) got as much of a thrill from the price tags as from the entire exhibition. This is what life-giving belyash does for 30 rubles!
A separate point that I would like to especially note is the very pleasant and sincere service among most exhibition guides. Very nice, mostly people with a positive attitude and a desire to help somehow navigate the space of this blinking chaos.
The charming girls from “Made by Us” really brightened my day, it would be the height of indecency not to write about it!
I liked the exposition of UAVs and helicopters, very informative, with models, sensible guides and a list with photographs of products by model and production status. This kind of exhibition is really what you expect when you go to an exhibition, something you can look at and have something to ask about.
It was very pleasant and appropriate to have a variety of games - such as pinball or table tennis-football, many willingly played it, and it seemed normal that not everywhere these “board games” were in line with the theme of the exhibitions or pavilions.
Also, as I already noted at the very beginning, it was very comfortable to create a relaxing space throughout most of the exhibition - quite a lot of comfortable and beautifully decorated areas where you can lie down, sit down and relax and contemplate.
I was very impressed by two pavilions - the mechanical engineering exhibition (“Made by Us”) and “Atom.” But a number of other pavilions are no less interesting in terms of content - it’s just that there may be less expensive and rich content, but there will be cool small competitions and a lot of interesting things if you don’t hesitate to ask questions and don’t just fly by.
Specifically for Atom - the first floor. It was done well, although, of course, it was possible to bring in more samples related to the construction of nuclear power plants - samples of heavy-duty concrete, some kind of anti-radiation suits and gas masks, Geiger counters and similar meters that could captivate the average person.
The two lower floors of “Atom” mentioned above, although in fact they are strictly empty (in comparison with the first floor) areas, are decorated and filled quite comfortably, although extremely distant from the theme. The same ottomans and chill zones, board games, sales - many, as I noticed, felt extremely comfortable there, which was facilitated by bookshelves with books on pseudo-scientific topics.
In the Sports and Family pavilion, there was a rather pleasant competition at the Rosrezerv exposition, where you had to guess the contents of ten bags by touch - and yours truly won a small chocolate bar.
And next door I got hold of a commemorative coin from Rosimushchestvo, although I was unable to pull out a gold (and get a chocolate) bar from a box with a small hole.
Perhaps it would be great to organize more small competitions like this.
I liked the medical exposition in the “In the Service of Health” pavilion - however, its contents were somewhat chaotic, and it was not entirely clear what exactly its organizers wanted to demonstrate to visitors. Future or present?
Wonderful and, dare I say it, professional people working as guides of these exhibitions - if you are reading these lines, then thank you very much!
Indeed, you can learn a lot of useful facts if you just stay and talk to people and look at their small professional exhibitions.
I highly recommend visiting a friend with a couple of microscopes - especially if you are with children. Although here's a note to the organizers - they could have sent more different creepy bugs and somehow played it up in installation terms.
Next to the medical expositions, I received a powerful boost of exposure to useful information - there was a small lecture hall, and there was a rather intense lecture. I take my hat off to this wonderful woman for her incredibly detailed coverage of the topic of osteoporosis and everything connected with it - alas, I did not ask her name. I respect people who are professional in their fields and who are able to present high-quality content and are meticulous in delving into the topic. In fact, during my entire six-hour stay at the exhibition, this was the only lecture anywhere that I noticed.
On my second trip, to my great joy, I discovered that in this pavilion there were regular lectures and on quite interesting topics, however, unfortunately, and to the disadvantage of the organizers, there was no program at the entrance, at least for the next few days.
It’s sad that because of this, a full hall will not gather on rather interesting topics and with good speakers.
instead of an epilogue
Well, my impressions on the first and second runs were quite different. Perhaps this is a reason to summarize - you will not fly through the exhibition in one go without serious losses in studying its exhibits. But its main content is often not even in the objects - the main thing, besides them, is what it brings - this is the atmosphere and positivity, ladies and gentlemen. Positivity, a positive charge – the same one that is in some deficit today. So I strongly recommend it!
No, you most likely will not see what I wanted to see on my first visit - an image of the future, perhaps in some places you will see a somewhat idealized image of the present, but with the task of charging you with something a little irrationally positive, some kind of then aesthetics, the organizers succeeded quite well. Albeit not without some controversial issues.
But, let me emphasize again, don’t fly headlong. Savor it, sometimes find something interesting where, perhaps, the organizers themselves did not even think of leaving it.
And finally - Russian girls and women of any age, you are the best. You decorate any exhibition, even if there is no content at all.
PS
Charming stranger - thank you for the delicious search quest, and I hope you smile while reading these lines.
That's all I wanted to say. Sincerely yours, Knell.
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