Milangrad app for iPhone and iPad

Milangrad is an app you can use anywhere, even while walking around Milan (Italy) to discover many of the illustrious and interesting Russians who lived and worked in Milan in the past. The project is part of the Russian participation in Expo 2015, but will continue to exist afterwards. With an iPhone or iPad you can browse through the many Russian personalities who have called Milan home, seeing historical and contemporary images, including the buildings in which they lived, the galleries where the artists showed their work, the theaters where Russian talents performed, etc.
The Expo is perhaps inevitably a festival of national and ethnic clichés, especially when its theme is food and drink, as in the case of 2015 Milan. The Italians show their pasta, the Brazilian brings coffee, the German brings beer and sauerkraut, and the Russians?... bring vodka and caviar, of course. Milangrad is an attempt to get beyond such stereotypes, including those connected with immigration and cultural exchange. The panorama of the Russian presence in Milan over the years is one of surprising variety and depth, revealing a true intellectual, artistic and human network that perhaps no longer exists, paradoxically, in our hyperconnected world. And the often disparaging allusion to vodka and its rituals can be seen in a positive light. Gathering for a drink in a home or a café is a way of socializing, a rite of friendship and solidarity.
So we have also found the bars nearest the homes many profiled emigrés, imagining the settings of their encounters with fellow expat friends and locals. Places in which you can also meet foreigners of all kinds who live in Milan today, and to talk about what it is like to live in a city that often seems to be populated almost exclusively by people from elsewhere. In a sense, in Milan we are all foreigners, and we are all Milanese. Or not?

NB: the pictured venues are not endorsed or promoted by this app, which is definitely not a guide to hotspots in Milan. The pictures are included to convey a sense of what the neighborhoods are like today (or in the past… we’ve tried to find the most historic sites where the Russians might really have spent time).

PS: wear your headphones! The soundtrack to each story is one sound selected from the many sounds of this often noisy city. The texts are not narrated. You can access them directly from each page by clicking on the text icon.

A note on spelling: there are many ways to transcribe Russian words into the Latin alphabet. Though it would seem more logical to stick to one system, it tends to make further research rather difficult. Also, many Russians Italianized their names, especially during the Fascist period in Italy. We have opted wherever possible for the version that will make it easiest to do further research on the Internet.
Enjoy meeting the Milanese Russians, or the Russian Milanese.

Curators:
Oxana Maleeva & Steve Piccolo

Organized by :
The Palaces of the Russian Museum Fund, St Petersburg
and Art Apart curating agency

With the support of:
Vnesheconombank - Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs
Forum-Dialogo Italo-Russo della società civile