In the 1950s–1970s, my grandmother Lida moved from Tula to Moscow to study — first at university and later in postgraduate school. She had to endure separation from her daughter, social expectations, and the challenges of establishing herself in a big city in order to “make something of herself” and earn a PhD in Economics. Yet this is the time she remembers with great affection: her Moscow is the era of the Thaw, freedom, and hopes for a peaceful future.
I live in Moscow and walk the same streets. Moscow today is a city of weary prosperity, where dreams and promises have dissolved into neon storefronts and calls to enlist in the military. Using a film Zenit camera, family archives, and interviews, I try to find a dialogue with that time — a time when people knew how to dream.
