Isaac Itkind

I thought I was going to study sculpture. When I was fifteen, my dad said: “There’s this interesting old man. Would you like to study with him?” “I do!” And he took me there. Isaac Yakovlevich Itkind lived in Workers’ Village in a frame and reed house that was shared by four families: a room, a kitchen, a veranda, a little piece of land, a shared shed, a shared toilet. And that is where he worked and lived with his wife. The space was incredibly small, knee-deep in mud, and he was sitting there in a room with two narrow iron beds with a pannier net, one for him and the other for his wife. How he fit on that narrow bed, I do not know. He was a very interesting man, many aspiring sculptors studied under him, and me too. Itkind worked mainly in wood; giant tree roots were stored at his place. To get by, he made copies of Lenin and Stalin statues. I was sculpting heads, he scolded me at first, then said, “Sit down.” There was a table made of three boards, and a stool. I sat on it, as he poured vodka into a faceted glass: “Drink!” I said: “I don’t drink.” Itkind taught me not to sculpt just like that. He said that I must first learn how to draw. I used to bring my work to him, he’d look at it and say: “You’ve got to fix this part”. On the fourth or fifth day, when I had already drawn this head twenty times, he said: “Now let’s just mold one nose or eye, and I molded it piece by piece.

Baiseitovaya Street Park

I was studying to become an architectural technician, and in my second year I got into the studio of Vladimir Katsev (author of the Medeo stadium and of the Almaty circus building). I worked part-time and got 30 rubles in addition to my scholarship. I did my first project with Vladimir Katsev – the square on Baiseitovaya Street… My supervisor was Mels Safin, the designer of “The Week” fountain [in the park]. We made a good tandem. We built the boulevard on Baiseitovaya in three months. When I started work, they gave me the contour plan right away – I didn’t even know what it was, they never showed it to us at the institute. All the reliefs and all the points were marked on it. …. At this time, I once again was admitted to hospital. The ward where I was admitted was just down Bayseitovaya Street, and I watched from the window – what my workers were doing there. If something was wrong, I ran straight there in my bathrobe, a minute – and I was already at the site.

At the same time we did the reconstruction of the nearby park where the Teatralnoye Café is. There I decided to apply a new lighting concept, and Katsev supported me: “Do whatever you want, it’s your job.” There was a famous plastics factory in Alma-Ata back then. They made prefabricated above-ground multi-colored shades by my order and we installed them around the park, it was very beautiful. But the shades lasted less than three years: winter, icing, and we had to keep an eye on them, of course the plastic started to crack and break, and the rest was done by the kids. It was my first experience, and the important thing was that I was given the freedom.

After the institute, studied with Evgeny Rosenblum [the creator of the famous Senege Studio]. Already then I was interested in space organization and environmental design. I learned a lot from Evgeny Abramovich. We learned from all the leading experts in architecture, sociology, economics and design. With the help of Evgeny Abramovich, I did the landscape design for the Dorozhnik Microdistrict. I visited him and we worked together. To get into Rosenblum’s group, you ideally had to have a basic education as an architect. I had it, it was easy for him to work with me, and thanks to him I received seven internships abroad. The Rosenblum Studio system was based on the Bauhaus. Imagine how lucky I was.

Kumis Restaurant

In Alma-Ata I designed a Kumis restaurant. It was the 250th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s joining Russia, and just when they [Leonid Brezhnev and Dinmukhamed Akhmetuly “Dimash” Kunaev, the head of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan] were sitting up there [in the government building, where the Almaty City Administration is now located], drinking kumis from porcelain bowls, and Leonid Brezhnev asked: “Don’t you have any kumis restaurant?” Dimash Akhmedovich Kunayev said: “Here!” and pointed his finger at the house on Baiseitovaya Street, which, if you drive from Abay, is on the left side, a long one. And this long “sausage” that was there, of course was not suitable for being turned into a kumis restaurant, but that is where I had to do it, because Kunayev pointed to that building. I went to the design institute and asked for a topographical survey. If there was a possibility of a “pocket” there, then I would make a kumis restaurant. And we found two “pockets” there, and since communications did not come close, we could go four meters into the yard. I was given only eight months for everything. And I, of course, worked day and night. I had to draw everything myself, I made drawings for the furniture makers and they manufactured everything here in Almaty. Kunayev personally approved and supervised the project. He used to walk over to us on Baiseitovaya Street and then they cordoned off the whole block. He’d ask, “Daughter, do you need anything?” and I’d answer that I had everything!

Our architecture grew thanks to Kunayev. He was the one who put out the call, and many architects came to us: Ripinsky, Korzhepmo, Alle, Kartasi, Ukhobotov, Ratushny. They all became personalities here. We had a community of architects, we all adored each other. They loved us as students, we loved them as masters.

I was lucky because at my site people took their shoes off. Usually people step on or step over, but in the kumis restaurant there were carpets. All the national dishes were served there; the place was designed for 60-80 seats.

There was graffito in the interior, a stained-glass window “The Adventures of Aldar Kose.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the kumis restaurant was transformed into a pen-club, and then everything was destroyed. And this is a memory, a history. If we don’t know our history, we don’t need a future.

– When you designed the interiors, what were you relying on?

– They had to be modern, inexpensive, and from the very beginning we put economy at the forefront. For example, I did the interior design for the western sector of the Medeo ice rink. There are three floors for the guests of honor. I made it so that it would be very inexpensive, but at that time people were not yet ready for the new way of thinking. But I had the formal idea: the floor became the seats, the seats became the wall. And then for the first time I made one chandelier that served three floors out of long neon bulbs. The project was accepted, but at the last minute the officials got scared of the innovations and put expensive materials into circulation. I freaked out and turned down the state prize, especially since it was given for the ice, not for the interiors.

I also worked for Spiridon Kosmeridi, I did the interiors of several projects: the Asem Household House, and the fire station on Gagarin Street. … We did the interiors for the Apparatus-Studio Complex (the building on Zheltoksan at Timiryazev Street) together with the architect Alexander Korzhempo. We wanted to make every floor a certain color. Of course, none of that worked out.

Gadilbek Shalakhmetov, who was the chief propaganda editor of republican television, left, and the financing stopped. But Gadilbek infected me with the works of physicist Alexander Chizhevsky, who was in exile in Karlag. The science of cosmogony, the cosmic connection of climate, society. I am grateful to Gadilbek for opening this man for me. After Chizhevsky, it was very easy for me to read Gumilev. And Gumilev is my idol.

– In Soviet times, did the ideological pressure have a strong impact on your work?

– In Almaty we had people who had already been tested, we had the same ideology, a common one. Now it’s more the pressure of money, not taste. I left teaching in 2014, I felt sorry for the kids, because it is no longer education that is at the top of the list. In general, this property requirement should be abolished in arts universities. If you don’t have money, you won’t get an education, even if you’re talented. And the untalented went and got it for money. So this thing is absolutely criminal. … How can you be a creatively talented person if you have paid for everything and everything was done for you?

…

After all, no one really knows their topic. Why was our Polytechnic diploma was previously respected? Because the institute produced specialists who knew their subject matter. We didn’t study narrowly. We could do everything, but I went further than my fellow students. Because I went deeper into the problem, I was forced to revive applied arts. They invited me to the Central Committee and said: do it, we need arts and crafts. It was the 1970s. I had to learn the craft of jewelry, leather, metal, and felt; I traveled around the countryside and collected everything. None of that existed within the framework of Kazakh art; we had to introduce and legalize everything and set the prices for it – everything was approved through Moscow. If you look at the amount of work, it would take me three months to make one carved dish, and let’s say a graphic artist takes a week to do one job. For him it would be 1500 and for me 150 rubles. That was the way folk art was valued. At that time, only tapestry could be properly valued, the Baltics mastered it and they kind of legitimized it.

– Monumental and fine art used to be actively integrated into architecture. Was it an order from above?

– In Soviet times, these types of work were included in the “other” section of the main construction budget. The biggest percentage, 40%, went to the fitters, they dug the foundation pit (zero cycle), then laid the foundations, columns, walls, floors, roof, everything, they got 40% and left. Three percent was set aside for other things. There was even a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR to include 3% of the estimate for artistic and decorative monumental works in each facility. But then the Soviet regime came to an end, the crisis hit, and that was it. Now no more three percent, not even one.

Source: (Vlast’, 11 September 2017: https://vlast.kz/gorod/24748-saule-bultrikova-arhitektor-v-almaty-net-sredovogo-dizajna.html)