On his/her first visit to Minsk a European cannot but be fascinated by the city’s strange yet actually irresistible charm. What strikes the tourist is the imperial city aesthetics, a phenomenon quite rare in Europe. Wide streets and avenues, many palaces, adorned with a bit odd but still lavish decoration and numerous vast parks in the city centre are really a kind of luxury for European cities, which could only be afforded by very rich and aristocratic ones. However, Minsk in its monumental form does not look absolutely cold, hostile or domineering but is touched by some delicate air of provincial sentimentalism. For European architecture nothing could be more out of the ordinary than sentimental empire style. Imperial city space, which by definition should keep the individual at a distance, is constantly and rapidly broken up in Minsk in order to become close to and congruous with humans. Just like in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, mighty architectural structures shrink to the size of a doll’s house and then mushroom to elephantine proportions again. The scenery keeps changing all the time. A gorgeous, splendidly decorated arch leads you into a shabby-looking inner yard with lines of tiny little booths instead of balconies as the only decoration on its unplastered walls. Another two hundred metres – and another monumental arch shows you the way out of this feast of wretchedness into another huge square, where gigantic Corinthian columns will march along the pavement, making passers-by look like Lilliputians. Rhythms, aesthetics, psychological moods constantly changing, the city space develops plenty of irrational and illogical zones, which remind you of Franz Kafka, Elias Canetti or Daniil Kharms and even make you feel as if you were a character from their books.

What can be more interesting and intriguing for a writer or a poet than to live and work for a while in the Sun City of Dreams that is unlike to any other city? It is this exact strange but gorgeous and huge scenery that remained after the grand performance called "Building of the Society of Common Happiness." Every state has its coat of arms, anthem and flag as its symbols. So has every social Utopia the Ideal City as its symbol. Its Ideal City is to represent the aesthetic of Happiness as figured out by the founders of the Utopia. In the state of workers and peasants the aesthetics of Happiness was associated with what the oppressed classes had been deprived of. Their idea of wonderful life and well-being presupposed that a person of the communist future was to reside in magnificent palaces with beautiful parks, fountains and perfect statues instead of in slums. These were to represent the beauty of a harmonious person of the communist future. The palaces were to be linked with one another via wide streets, lined up with green trees and exotic flowers. The Ideal City was to have grand squares at its key places, where happy citizens would come together for exciting celebrations and parades. It is this very concept of the Sun City of Dreams that has been carried out in Minsk’s post-war reincarnation.

Artur Klinau
Translation from Belarusian: Volha Kalackaya and Volha Hapeyeva