Mezonin 2008
It is hard to believe that this oldest Russian arboretum is located almost in the centre of Moscow. You should only open an ordinary door located at the address Prospect Mira, 26 and you will find yourself in a sort of a parallel world. There is no asphalt here, trafic noise does not reach this place, flowers of rare plants smell sweet, and visitors of the garden walk slowly along footpaths.
In the middle of July 2008, the Mezonin magazine had its annual exhibition of landscape design in this wonderful locality. Thanks to inexhaustible energy of the organizers the exhibition of landscape design has turned into a true holiday. The best landscape architects of Moscow have presented here their works. "Thirst" was the theme of the exhibition that year. Participants used various water constructions and have created a true "oxygen paradise" in the centre of Moscow.
Sundial is just a small part of landscape design. Many years ago sundials decorated almost all Russian gardens. But now they are forgotten, and I am very grateful to the organizers for they have invited me to participate in the exhibition and thus have made the important contribution to revival of local gnomonics. The name of my composition was "Water and the sun: proportion is the point". Garden is a small Universe, where life depends on two great forces - water and the sun. Thousand years ago, when the world in our consciousness was one and indivisible, sundial connected microcosm of a garden with the unlimited Universe. It embraced them in a single entity. There are no plants nor fountains or reservoirs in my composition. There is only the sun and ancient devices to measure its heavenly path. When creating a small Universe, let's remember that not all natural powers are submited to us. At least two of them are not subjected to us - water and the sun. Proportion is just the point.
