Wednesday Walk: Urban sculpture and motorbikes

Greetings, friends! This time my walk started with a planned event: I attended a lecture on urban sculpture installed in parks and gardens in Malaya Okhta. Malaya Okhta is an area of the city I don't visit very often, so after the lecture I took a walk around the neighbourhood. At the end of the walk I unexpectedly found myself at a motorbike exhibition: I noticed a cluster of motorbikes and decided to go into the courtyard of the exhibition space. The walk turned out to be very diverse! But let's take it all in order.

The lecture about urban sculpture was organised by one of the libraries of our city. The main topic of this lecture were the sculptures installed in Maloohtinsky Park. In addition, attention was also paid to other urban sculptures of the neighbourhood, installed on squares and in courtyards. As part of the event, visitors had the opportunity to enter the school grounds, where several modern urban sculptures and one historical monument are installed.

The sculptural monument to Konstantin Grot was made in 1906 and was originally installed in another district of the city. Konstantin Grot is known as the creator of the system of care for the blind in Russia. At the foot of the monument sits a blind girl, she is learning to read from a book with relief letters. The territory around this monument is very well-groomed, the first spring flowers have blossomed in the flowerbeds.

All other sculptures, which were discussed at the lecture and during the walk, were created by modern sculptors and took their places in parks and gardens recently. These sculptures were created during city competitions. The theme of one such competition was France - resulting in works such as ‘Montmartre Flower Girl’ and ‘Gaul's Rooster’. Contemporary art is not always easy to understand and the information I learnt in the lecture helped me to better understand these sculptures.

During my walk I decided to take some photos of the Malaya Okhta neighbourhood. I walk much more often in the city centre, among historical buildings, this area is very different. There are typical residential buildings of the second half of the 20th century here, and sometimes there are older buildings among the typical buildings. In the 19th century and earlier, this area was not deserted, it was an urban suburb, where one-storey wooden houses with gardens and orchards prevailed. There were very few stone houses, but some have survived to this day.

I was about to finish my walk and go home when I noticed a cluster of motorbikes and motorcyclists on the square near the exhibition centre. It turned out that there was an exhibition going on with various models of motorbikes, all-terrain vehicles and quad bikes. The main action was taking place inside the building, but some of the performances and test rides were taking place in the courtyard.

This is my entry for the #WednesdayWalk challenge by @tattoodjay.