Part Two. E-E Kozlov and Peterhof

Chapter 10. Fishing at Peter the Great’s pond

As antagonistic as they may appear, both Leningrad’s bright pop art and Moscow’s rhetoric overcharge had something in common. It was the mocking tone of dada defying the authorities – the Soviet “stiob” (“styob”)[1] – more playful in the case of Leningrad and more sardonic in the case of Moscow (perhaps because of Stalin’s obsessions, radiating from the Kremlin). Yet artists from both cities presented ironical distance as the only possible attitude towards the state of affairs, that is, towards the official image of the Soviet Union as the world’s first socialist state. Whatever native roots were being considered, they passed through the filter of stiob.

There was, however, a third position – Evgenij Kozlov‘s position: to take art seriously, without the stiob. It didn’t it exclude humour. Rather, taking art seriously means that for Kozlov, his commitment to art – or art’s commitment to him – expressed itself not as a reaction to favourable or unfavourable circumstances, but as an aesthetisation of what he perceived. Like Kandinsky, he awarded it a spiritual dimension through his art.

This is perhaps most obvious in his portraits, and I will quote once more from Kozlov’s comment on his Portrait of Timur Novikov with Arms Consisting of Bones: “I aim for the complete transformation of the person, which can be also called ‘spiritual metamorphosis’”.[2] And this is why Georgy Guryanov declared “I prefer to all others those portraits Evgenij Kozlov painted of me”[3] and “His works made a big impact on me personally”. [4]

Kozlov’s art is, in a manner of speaking, “augmented reality”, as reflected in the name of his studio: Galaxy Gallery. His art transforms meaning through a subtle and rich sense of harmony fostered by a specific type of native roots. The key word is harmony: Kozlov was lucky enough that he was not living in total discord with what surrounded him. It was due the fact that he lived outside Leningrad – in Petrodvorets, as Peterhof was called during the Soviet times. Peterhof, the summer residence of the Russian Tsars on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, helped him to define his own position in art.

Consequently, in the second part of this article, as I am returning to the question of Evgenij Kozlov’s native roots in art, I will consider it no longer as a question of determining the influence of a particular artist or style. Rather, as suggested in the introduction, I will “include Peterhof into a wider concept of native roots and thereby extend native roots to native culture, or, perhaps, to a more spiritual concept of native atmosphere, the latter being free of any patriotic undertones.” For the sake of clarity, I decided to discuss three aspects of Peterhof in three different chapters – leisure, work, and studio – as each of them contributed to Kozlov’s art in a specific way, all the same interrelating with the other ones. The last chapter, “A perception of pureness” is dedicated to Kozlov’s conceptual approach to art which might just as well be called his empirical approach to art, as it is based on his intimate experience of the creative process. His concept was fostered by the positive aspects of Peterhof, which, for their part, allowed him to transcend the limiting aspects of everyday life.   

Kozlov moved from Leningrad to Peterhof in 1970, at the age of fifteen, when his parents finally received the keys to their own flat in one of the new quarters not far from the Grand Palace [5]. It was a modest  44m², 2-room flat in one of those typical five-storied brick blocks nicknamed “krushchovka” (after Nikita Khrushchev), but compared to the family’s 12m² room in a communal flat in Leningrad, it was luxury.

Although Kozlov continued attending his school in Leningrad and later commuted to the city regularly, the relocation to Peterhof/ Petrodvrets had a fundamental impact on him: both Saint Petersburg and Peterhof have preserved the imperial past, yet Saint Petersburg’s palaces are integrated into an urban tissue, while Peterhof’s palaces, the Russian Versailles, are set before nature’s open horizon. This set his spirit free.

Even Peterhof’s new housing areas were different from Leningrad’s densely structured microdistricts built on the fringe of the historical centre. Kozlov’s block of flats offered a stunning view of a park with trees lining the Samson canal aqueduct supplying water for the fountains of the palace gardens. When he stood on the balcony, Peterhof Palace appeared on one side, while on the other side, Lugovoi Park could be seen – hiding the ruins of the Pink Pavilion, the subject of one of Kozlov’s drawings from 1983.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov Развалины Розового Павильона • The Ruins of the Rose Pavilion Wax crayon and crayon on paper, 29.5 x 42 cm, 1983.

We may list the names of those who built Peterhof’s palaces and designed interiors and gardens  – Domenico Trezzini, Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond, Johann Friedrich Braunstein, Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Jacob Philipp Hackert, Andrei Stackenschneider, Andrei Voronikhin, Giacomo Quarenghi, Leonardt van Harnigfelt, and James Meders, to name just a view. This almost equalled a trip to Europe.

However, if we want to make a case for Peterhof as being part of Kozlov’s native roots, this does not mean that we simply extend the list of names from the Russian avant-garde to the 19^th and 18^th centuries, making it more European. First of all, these names are not specific for Peterhof alone; we find most of them in Saint Petersburg as well. Second, extending the list of “influences” backward would lead us much further back in time – through the collection of the Hermitage, to the old masters like Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens, but also to antique art. Besides, Kozlov was by far not the only New artist familiar with the treasures displayed at Leningrad’s museums.

But if Leningrad stood for power, Peterhof stood for leisure. Imperial leisure certainly had a representational function, but not in the first place – Peterhof was a retreat shaped by the personal preferences and tastes of its owners. Apart from the main palace, “a grandiose triumphal memorial glorifying the grandeur of Russia”, as the official website of Peterhof Museum informs us [6], there are a number of smaller palaces and retreats set in the beautifully designed Lower Park, like the Monplaisir Palace or the Hermitage Pavilion – not counting those many palaces and parks in and around Peterhof town.

One of (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov's aquatints from 1993 (edition of 26). A man and a woman, allegories of earth and water, are set before a view of the western part of Peterhof's Lower Park. The artist assembled different perspectives of Marly Palace (left), Marly Alley with decorative vases (centre), and Marly Mound or Marly Wall, an earthen wall protecting the park from the sea winds, supplied with a clearly defined line of trees trimmed into round shapes.

Among these places, Marly Palace had special significance for Kozlov, and I will start with a description of this location taken from Saint-Petersburg.com:

Located in the western half of the Lower Park, the Marly Palace is a charming baroque mansion that was built on the orders of Peter the Great as an intimate retreat in the grounds of the Grand Palace. Peter's inspiration was the royal hunting lodge at Marly Le Roi, just outside Paris. Louis XIV had commissioned his residence there as a private, peaceful alternative to Versailles. Peter visited Marly Le Roi during his visit to France in 1717, and, when creating the "Russian Versailles" at Peterhof, he decided to have his own personal sanctuary built in the grounds.

This section of the park at Peterhof was the last to be developed during Peter’s reign, and it began with the digging of the two ponds – one rectangular, one crescent shaped – that surround the Marly Palace. The ponds were stocked with carp and zanders for the royal kitchen. Work began on the ponds and the landscaping of the surrounding area in early 1720 and, later in the same year, on the house itself.[…][7]

This is how Kozlov remembers the place when looking back to the 1980s today:  

My friend Viktor and I used to go fishing at the Large Marly Pond early in the morning, around five o’clock. Viktor was living nearby, and because I didn’t own a bicycle myself, he would pick me up with his bicycle, and I would sit behind him, on the luggage carrier.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov's vintage print summer 1980 is a view of Olga’s Pond, with the Cathedral of Peter and Paul (1905) in the background. The Tower of the Tsaritsina Pavilion can be vaguely discerned to the right of the Cathedral, behind a tree.






It was just at short but pleasurable ride, along Olga’s Pond and the Tsaritsina Pavilion, and then through a very quiet and very empty town before we arrived at one of the western entrances of the Lower Park which wasn’t closed or guarded, at least normally. We then carried the bicycle down the steps following the Golden Hill Cascade with its beautiful arrangement of statues, walked past the Triton Fountains and settled at the pond with our fishing rods, to relax. Apart from the two of us, there were only two other anglers coming regularly, so everybody knew each other.

The gates of the Lower Park opened at 9.00 o’clock, but tourists would first visit the central part of the garden where the fountains are, especially the Grand Cascade, and the Marly pond remained our private place until half past nine or ten.

Fishing at Peter the Great’s pond next to Peter the Great’s palace makes you feel quite special. To tell the truth, we almost never caught any fish. The only fish living in that pond were crucian carps, and they almost never took the bait. I don’t know why, perhaps they were fed every day. For an angler, there is always hope, but sometimes we decided to go to the other side of Marly palace, where there is a smaller semi-circular pond divided into four sections to rear crucians, the so-called “Sectorial Ponds”. They had lots of fish, and those fish were easily lured. Naturally, they were also very small – too small to take them home, so we would throw them back into the pond. Those from the large pond, when we got any, would make a nice fish soup, or you could dry them.

At exactly a quarter to nine, a guard would come asking us to leave before the first visitors arrived. Sometimes we left, and sometimes we just pretended to leave and remained until he turned up a second time. When we were in a mood for continuing our outdoor activities, we would leave the garden through a gate behind the Sectorial Ponds and then ride on Viktor’s bicycle to the Yacht Club or further. [8]


(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov (with fishing rod) and Viktor Labutov (with dip net) in Peterhof's Lower Park, with a panorama of the Grand Palace and the Grand Cascade, 1980. © Archive of (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov

Peterhof palaces and gardens had been heavily damaged by German troops during World War II and were entirely reconstructed starting in 1944. The works took several decades, and Kozlov and his friend Viktor actually enjoyed the sight of a reconstructed Marly Palace. Yet by the 1980s, the town still – or again – had its own share of dilapidated historical buildings, from modest wooden houses to splendid manor houses. Some of them stood in in the very centre of town, including buildings not even touched by the war – just slowly falling apart. There were also examples of modern structures or facilities that lacked maintenance, like the metal double gates at the rear entrance to the watch manufacturer “Raketa”: the right gate was deformed and its metal meshwork hanging loose, as if a lorry had crashed into it. Kozlov selected them for a photo shoot to contrast it with Viktor’s first-class fashionable appearance.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, Peterhof, rear entrance of the "Raketa" watch manufacturer Photo: Viktor Labutov, 1980		Viktor Labutov with aviator goggles. Photo and vintage print: (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, 1980.

But those neglected places could not spoil the overall impression of a courtly exclave to the communist reality. According to Evgenij Kozlov, the scarcity of political propaganda, of banners with political slogans and of photographs featuring the holy trinity Marx, Engels and Lenin or contemporary political heroes greatly contributed to this impression.

What has yet remained a somewhat abstract concept of Evgenij Kozlov’s sense of harmony, we can now define, with regard to Peterhof, as a well-balanced combination of man-made and natural elements created for imperial leisure and recreation. Its main features are elegance, refinement, variation, individual taste, space, nature (gardens and parks), and water (ponds, lakes and the seashore).  All this became part of Evgenij Kozlov’s native culture.

In other words, Peterhof possessed none of that scenographic monumentalism characterising Soviet representational architecture, none of those huge central squares to celebrate heroic victories – Peterhof’s heroism was that of the meticulous reconstruction of its aristocratic past, and the results are truly praiseworthy.

previous page: Chapter 9. Narodnost’: quite simply the people
next page: Chapter 11. The Petrodvorets Canteen Combine

Introduction: The ostensibly synchronistic evolution of the New Artists

Part One: The New Artists and the Russian avant-garde

Chapter 1. Timur Novikov: native roots and western influences

Chapter 2. Perestroika, the Mayakovsky Friends Club, and pop art

Chapter 3. E-E Kozlov: Two Cosmic Systems

Chapter 4. ROSTA Windows stencil techniques – updated

Chapter 5. The inclusion or exclusion of stylistic influences

Chapter 6. From Mayakovsky to Larionov and folk art: something of everything

Chapter 7. Beyond the trend: Kozlov’s portrait of Timur Novikov (1988)

Chapter 8. Cosmopolitism and ethnicity: how Russian is the Russian avant-garde?

Chapter 9. Narodnost’: quite simply the people

Part Two: E-E Kozlov and Peterhof

Chapter 10. Fishing at Peter the Great’s pond

Chapter 11. The Petrodvorets Canteen Combine

Chapter 12. Galaxy Gallery

Chapter 13. A perception of pureness

– Works cited –

Research / text / layout: Hannelore Fobo, May / September 2020.

Uploaded 24 September 2020
Last updated 20 October 2024