Prologue
The Biography of a Word
Remont arrived in Russia on horseback. Cavalry, stairwell notices of the nineties, stretch-ceiling skies of the 2000s — the biography of the word now written above our door.
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No. 01
The Story of One Chandelier
Acquired in 1973 — by waiting list, through a friend, on a pram frame. It outlived the omen that crystal brings money, one evroremont, and fifteen years in storage. In 2026 it was finally offered a ceiling of its own height.
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No. 02
The Door
Pine, 1961. Two height charts buried under layers of paint, twenty-three years as a table top at the dacha — and, in 2026, the only delivery that arrived on time.
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No. 02 +
The Door +
The same door, told at length: three women, three coats of paint and two worlds — the one where things took eight months to obtain, and the one where a tap ships via the Emirates.
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No. 03
The Staircase
Two plasterers: Andrew, the one with the templates; Dimon, the one who is two metres tall. The staircase is eleven tonnes of reinforced concrete required by drawing to look as if it weren't there.
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No. 04
Helga
Her name was Helga — a GDR furniture line by the invoice, a first name at home. For half a century she displayed china guarded from food and kept the money the family hid from one another; everyone knew where. In 2027 she was offered forty thousand and the word «object». Neither helped.
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