Part II: The Last Exit Before Tall

The symbolism of rock, stone – kamen in Russian is very complex. It is a riddle, a mask – both revealing and hiding some sacred sense under the curve of its smiling lips, a Sphinx guarding its secret – inexplicable and eternal. Kamen is a limit, a barrier, a prison wall but also a protection, a shelter. It is the "cornerstone", foundation – be it the earthly city of St Petersburg (the town of Peter, town of the rock) or celestial New Jerusalem. It is the White Rock of Slavic mythology named Alatyr: the center of the Universe, father of all rocks – and the Altar. All the connotations: archaic and contemporary, hidden and obvious, simple and unexplainable are focused in one image.

Stones in wrappers – this is the core subject of the photo images. The wrappers are construction covers that were placed on the façades of buildings during their reconstruction. At the same time they are boxes, packages used to pack the city and carry it in your memory wherever you go. In this sense wrappers preserve rocks, stones and buildings (kamni) of the city from the oblivion and destruction by the wicked time. But wrappers also hide and shield the reality of the city, its features. This creates a new interpretation of the symbol, more over – reverses it completely, showing us that the wrappers can erase kamni, cause an erosion of the stones from our memory. The name of the book is like a palindrome that you can read in either direction. Rocks\Wrappers are rooted into each other. They are no longer possible to separate – whatever seemed to be the rock in closer examination appears to be the wrapper, and the wrapper happens to be the rock.