Twilights of Leningrad

Twilight bathes the city of Leningrad at 2 am during the white nights of June, when the sun barely dips below the skyline and the bridges on the Neva River open to let ships in and out of the port.  In World War Two, this lively and beautiful city endured 900-day Nazi siege. Ruins lay for miles in every direction, 1.5 million residents died.

  

Peter the Great built Leningrad – then called St. Petersburg – on the Neva estuary between 1703 and 1725, and turned the miles of marshland into stone-lined canals. One-sixth of the city’s 195 square-mile area is water, and the canals and the Neva River divides it into 101 islands, which are connected by 620 bridges!  

St.Petersburg

We are on the bus No 10 which travels the broad Nevsky Prospekt full of shops, theatres and offices. Thousands of people are on the streets! “Usual scene”, my dad says, he spent a lot of time in the Leningrad Pilots Academy.

The riches of imperial Russia glow in Leningrad’s Italian and French architecture and ambience: in the golden dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the needling spire of the Admiralty, and in the once grand houses of merchants and nobles along the Winter Palace Embankment.

Did you know that one of my childhood wishes was to become a ballerina? A real, famous ballerina in real ballet shoes! The tutus, the pink satin, the elongated elegant lines of the ballet positions, it all spoke to my heart. Grace, strength, and determination!  

My first and the only pair of ballet shoes come from The Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre Shop. They were lovely. Satin pink with beautiful ribbons. Size 3 or less. I think my mum still keeps them in the “treasure” box.

Saint Petersburg, Russia, 21/06/2002.The summer solstice weeks known as White Nights.

The Kirov Ballet perform in Peterhof Palace gardens at 11.30pm at the Stars of the White Nights midsummer ball. Copyright Jeremy Nicholl 2003. All rights reserved.

Bukhara-Moscow 661 train

Yellow desert lies endlessly alongside the railway, its vast lands stretch away for unimaginable distances on every side, finally expire against the sky. In memory I am travelling from Bukhara to Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. I am 8 years old. It is summer. The outside temperature is 45 Celsius in the shade if you find it, 70 C in the sun. It is so hot it makes little difference. There is no air conditioner. Inside the long train carriage I am boiling and anticipating my visit.

The windows are open and I put my head out to catch the wind. Gosh, it is hot! Outside, the sand is glowing, which look as if it is made of gold. The colour of the sky is the same enamel blue I found on the jewelled eggs made for the Romanov tsars by the House of Faberge.

       

     Pictures of Kara-Kum desert

When we arrive at the next station, a few elderly men and many babushka-crowned women offer to sell yogurt, bread and smoked fish. My mum said “No, thank you, we have loads of tinned food with us”. The train took on water and we departed.

I spotted two little boys eating tomatoes and watching the train departing, I waved at them and immediately received a tomato leftover on my eye. Great. Thanks. My brother was rolling with laughter.  

Me and my brother in Leningrad 1976

  Me, my dad and my brother by the Neva River, Leningrad, 1976

While staring at the people on the station, their square, grey boxes-houses with flat roofs, I began for the first time to appreciate the complexities of my country. Like so many fortunate people, I grew up reading Pushkin and Chekhov, thrilled to Tchaikovsky and Kabalevskiy and felt the impact of Ryazanov’s films. I grew up in Uzbekistan, I grew up in the Soviet Union, which was immense, the largest country in the world.

Historically, we, the soviets, have been isolated by geography and climate. The country had the longest, and in many ways the most economically useless coastline of any country, blocked by ice on the north for many months of the year. People living in the vast territory could only contact the outside world by risking the costly and perilous journeys through boundless forests, and across uninhabited icebound lands, arid steppes, and terrible deserts.

As a nation, we clung so passionately to our memories and revered our heroes in mighty monuments, remaining a country of colourful and vigorous people.

But now I am going to Moscow, which will take me three days, to take another train to Leningrad, where the night streets are filled with silver light and music. I am with my mum, dad, and my brother.  

You can buy my designs from Dina Malkova Fashion for Women page now!

You can buy my designs from Dina Malkova Fashion for Women page now! Click on products to open my shop! At the moment, there are bags and accessories in my shop but I will be adding more products regularly. If you have any questions please feel free to drop me a line on dina-malkova@mail.ru. Thank you!

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It goes without saying - we all love travelling. I am not an exempt from it. I was born and brought up in the ancient town of Bukhara, Uzbekistan, in Central Asia. The daughter of artist,
Firs Malkov, I travelled widely with my family, and by 11 months of age I had already completed an extensive tour of Russia.

I would like to tell you about one of my amazing trips back in centuries. To do that,
I did not use Time Machine, or the caravans of Marco Polo or the ships of James Cook.
All I did was buying a bus ticket to Urgut Bazaar on one of Sunday mornings…

If you are in Samarkand, anyone can show you the way to Urgut Bazaar, which takes place at one and the same place for many centuries. They say, it is thousand years old.   It offers goods which you wouldn’t buy anywhere else. 

Heading through the parking lot, I am coming up to the main gates of Bazaar, entering and seeing a vast area. I am trying to take it in at a glance. This would be hard to describe! Commotion, hubbub, noise, colours, odours! There are colourful women wearing clothes layer on layer, men in beautiful long coats and high boots… I am looking more attentively now; people at the market are not just a crowd, they all are set in a designated areas. Here is a carpets’ place. A bit further, there is a place for traditional spices. There! My heart jumps… A place for textiles!

A second later I am there. Beautifully embroidered by hand fabrics were brought here by many different dynasties. Each family has got its own pattern, passed by generations. The patterns are in beautiful ornaments, colours. I can differ a fabric from Bukhara by very pale background and fantastic scarlet flowers, and a fabric from Tadjikistan – rich orange with black embroidery. Feels fantastic! How amazing to see the carousel of time and people.

I caught myself having a carousel in my head too – this fabric I will use for summer coat, oh! that one will make a great bag, this tassel will go for the belt … wonderful!

Everywhere I go in the market the welcome is friendly, every trader offers politely and talk to me about their area they have come from. I have spent a few hours there, talking to people, buying the fabrics and my bag is full of great stuff ready for my new collection.

My collections are manufactured in Uzbekistan with the help of people I have been working with for more than 8 years. They are tailors and embroiders, cutters and shoe makers. They always inspire me and boost my imagination with new ideas. Each piece in my collections is hand made. Each jacket or pair of boots is individually crafted including hand-made cut and stitching.

I use lots of fabrics from Urgut Bazaar in my collections as well as a mixture of hand woven ikats from Ferghana Valley (a traditionally woven technique with a special yarn dyeing method).
I usually use silks and embroidery as the key features, while man made materials are used for their durability.

I have always been passionate about art, design and travel and this has strongly influenced my career over the years but Urgut Bazaar is always a place for me which can boast a magnificent history and such welcoming and colourful people! 

Good morning the world!

At last I have decided to start my blog. I should admit it is all very new to me and very exciting! What to say, how to write, where to start? Anyway, it is all on the way now and hope we can talk and share, because this world is all about sharing!