Evgeny Brusilovsky. Memories with Comments and Illustrations (original titel: Евге́ний Брусило́вский. Воспоминания с комментариями и иллюстрациями) is a book edited by Nari Shelekpaev and published by Tselinny Art Center. The typefaces in use are Columba Ruby and Text by Lewis McGuffie.

The hardcover publication measures 170×248 mm and was printed on Mondi 60 g/m² paper by Service Press in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in an edition of 1,000 copies. ISBN 978–601–7158–06–4.

Note from the publisher (translated):

The memoirs of E. G. Brusilovsky deserve interest for many reasons. Firstly, they are a valuable ego-document that not only describes the life path of Brusilovsky himself, but gives an idea of the country in which the author lived most of his adult life, and of the people with whom he communicated and worked in Kazakhstan. Many of these people were key figures in Kazakh politics and culture in the second third of the twentieth century. Secondly, the memoirs help to understand how the Sovietization of Kazakh culture took place in the 1930s and 1940s, shedding light on this process “from the inside.” In this way, they compare favorably with official sources, which inform the reader about what the local or union leadership wanted to achieve, but leave without attention to how exactly certain directives of the Soviet government were implemented. Thirdly, Brusilovsky’s diaries are of interest precisely because of their subjective view of Soviet Kazakhstan: not being a native of Kazakhstan, the author discovers the country for himself and writes about it with disarming frankness.

The phenomenon of the Kazakh new wave (Казахская Новая Волна) is a not yet unraveled phenomenon. It appeared on the border of the eras when the Soviet Union existed, and continued into the era of independence. Perhaps it was the films of the Kazakh “wave” that formed a sense of freedom in our minds. Novovolnovtsy came to the cinema and, as it is sung in the song of Viktor Tsoi, they said: “We will continue to act!”

This book is not only a story about how the “Kazakh new wave” was formed and strengthened, how it conquered the world, surprising the audience with its European style of writing and Asian temperament. Six interviews with directors, graduates of the workshop of Sergei Solovyov, are master classes in creating world-class cinema. Reviews from film critics from New York to Singapore are an indication that our “wave” has never been a local phenomenon, but had a global reach.

Gulnara Abikeeva (Гульнара Абикеева) is a film critic, professor at ALMAU, and the author of eleven books on cinema.

Tselinny Publishing. Almaty, 2021
ISBN 978–601–06–7425–7
200×260 mm, 400 p., 1,200 copies
Paper: Stora Enso 65 GSM

Венец. Добро пожаловать в Идеальное (“Venets: Welcome to the Ideal”) is an investigative research into the nature of ‘the ideal’ in USSR, based on the story of the Venets high-rise hotel, built in Ulyanovsk in 1970. In 2017, with the support of the VAC Foundation, the book was published in English and sold in a small print run of 500 copies at independent bookstores in Europe. For the past six months, Gluschenkoizdat has been working on the Russian-language version of the book, and now we are finally ready to announce the pre-order of the new edition. Venets is fully done and is now in the second stage of proofreading.

The book was transformed into a large newspaper format (400×578 mm, 36 pages). We’ve been able to preserve most of the photographs, all texts and documents, and even added some more.

For the typography, Steinbeck and Quant Antiqua are used throughout.

We invite you to participate in the crowdfunding campaign of this new edition of Venets and to pre-order the novel-newspaper on the Planeta.ru website.

Ravshana Bahramovna Kurkova is a Russian actress of theater, film and dubbing, producer of Uzbek origin.

The cover of her single record “Забота” (zabota, “care/worries”) was designed by Kirill Gluschenko and is one of the rare examples of New Zelek’s Cyrillic character set in use for album art. The portraits on front and back are by Anna Sukhovei.

The back cover uses PaleoLit (“a sloppy trace of a 36 point hot metal type”) for the artist’s name, and the small text is set in Academy.

A new website for the fictional publishing house Глущенкоиздат (Gluschenkoizdat) continues the storyline of creating an image of a large, existing organization with its roots dating back to the 80s. The site structure, visual language and tone of voice are following this task.

The texts are written on behalf of the publisher in a recognizable formal language. Exhibitions are described as if they're the publisher stands at an Expos. The reference sections inherent in large publishers have been compiled in detail: internships, information for authors, branches, information about the publisher.

Visual language slightly refers to the aesthetics of the late 1980s office. So, instead of lines, hyphens are used, and all texts are typed in mostly one size and using just Quant Antiqua (98% Literaturnaya look-alike with 50% discount at the Paratype store). The site feels as if printed on an electronic typewriter. The text and graphic elements are made in blue, referring to the color of carbon paper or blue ink for the typewriter tape. A select number pages use Journal Sans (for headlines). Journal was stretched and used for the Глущенкоиздат logo.

Gluschenkoizdat even starts its own residence: an element of organization, considered in Russia as the prerogative of large and wealthy institutions. The site announced the creation of a residence for writers and researchers Pioneer Resort, located on the Baltic Sea coast, with shifts of 3 months. The residence will actually exist, the first shift has already taken place and, based on its results, a 100 copies edition of the book will be published and an event will be held in Kaliningrad.

All pages of the site start with the order number and circulation: it is assumed that site is designed for a limited amount of visits, just like the printed matter.

The second edition of independent literary magazine Носорог (Nosorog, “Rhinoceros”) uses Jannon throughout, paired with texts and hairlines set in Brioni Sans and some bigger headlines set in Activist. Layout and art direction by Kirill Gluschenko. Illustrations by Victoria Vinogradova and Valentin Tkach.

On their Facebook page, Носорог describe themselves as:

The literary magazine “Носорог” was founded in 2014 by the writers Katya Morozova and Igor Gulin, in 2015 the prose writer Stanislav Snytko joined the editorial board. Носорог publishes prose, poetry and philosophy, but is fundamentally devoid of critical and theoretical blocks, leaving the reader alone with texts and images. Each issue is composed according to the collage principle and combines different styles and forms, words and images that are not assembled into a single statement, but hold tension.

The Носорог Book Publishing House, founded in 2018, was a continuation and consequence of journalistic activities. The publishing house works mainly with large prosaic formats, the publication of which in a magazine usually stretched to several issues. The publishing house focuses on both modern literature and the phenomena of the past, which for some reason have not yet found access to the Russian-speaking reader.

Poster for the Benign Duplicates book launch event at Rotorbooks, Leipzig. 70×100 cm, edition of 3 copies.

Benign Duplicates is a limited edition publication, presenting twelve days from the diaries (1962) and photographs (1954–1993) from the archive of Nikolai Kozakov. Under the moniker of publishing House Gluschenkoizdat, Kozakov’s notes and images were processed in various productions including this English edition, an audio drama and a website with the same diary excerpts as used for this booklet.

(...) In writing down his every step, Kozakov remains unknowable, like outer space — the conquest of which he devotes so much attention to in his notes. Who is he? A man of the ‘60s? An intellectual wretch? Your father’s older brother? Anti-Semite? Loser? Poet? Extraterrestrial? The diary is clearly not intended for anyone else to read: Kozakov writes it for himself and remains hermitically sealed within its text, exposing the reader to the principal and tragic impenetrability of “the Other.” Kozakov’s peculiar relationship with reality has no parallel in today’s world. It is like a message in a bottle that he sent not 50, but 500 years ago. (...) — book cover text by Maria Kuvshinova

1962, Soviet Union. On the brink of inevitable coming of communism, Nikolai Kozakov, a truck driver from the Gorky region, steals from the collective farm property, goes to Kazakhstan to work on the gas pipeline construction and is treated for stuttering by hypnosis in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. Behind the ostentatious masculinity — he hunts, rides a motorcycle and is constantly drunk — Kozakov hides a secret life of a man with developed taste, a subtle observer, a student of ancient mythology. He writes poetry, takes photographs, pities himself and falls in love, perhaps too often. — Grigor Atanesian, Gluschenkoizdat publishers

Text and headlines are set with Journal (Paratype), and Akzidenz Grotesk is used for the introduction paragraph on the book cover and for captions. A few numerals use Journal Sans.

Edited by K. Gluschenko
Translated from Russian, by B. McGarr and M. Shipley.
200×260 mm, 128 pages, first edition of 10 copies
Order № 184.

Meloman is a magazine published by the Moscow Philharmonic. This is Issue No. 2, summer 2018. On the cover: composer Alexander Wustin by Anisia Kuzmina. Layout and art direction by Kirill Gluschenko. 192 pages, 168×240 mm, in Russian.

The magazine logo uses Scotch Modern. Body copy is set with Kazimir Text and Girott is used in many forms and sizes ranging from section openers and drop caps to quotes etcetera.

Illustration by Elena Chetverik

Hotel Venets was part of a larger complex of buildings, that were specially constructed to mark the anniversary in Ulyanovsk, a small Soviet town formerly known as Simbirsk, renamed in honour of its most famous son, Lenin (born Ulyanov). A photo album discovered amid the archives of the local history museum, published by the Leningrad architects who designed the hotel, contained photographs of the hotel when it first opened, revealing its original interiors. During its 47 years of operation, the hotel underwent many distinct renovations. For the exhibition Space Force Construction, I used one of these photographs as a reference for reconstructing a three-room luxury suite within the palazzo in Venice. Accompanying this is a selection of postcards featuring photographs of today’s Ulyanovsk, titled Ascension to ‘Olympus’ (a rooftop bar called “Olympus” recently opened in the Venets). These images capture my experience of travelling to Ulyanovsk on the eve of the centennial anniversary of the October Revolution. Checking into the hotel, I worked my way up from the first floor to the very top, spending one night in each room, until at last, on New Year’s Eve, I reached ‘Olympus’.

This wonderful book documents the architectural results of another Soviet anniversary – the celebrations of the centenary of Lenin’s birth in Ulyanovsk, formerly Simbirsk, the small city on the Volga where he was born. Told by the authorities in Moscow that the ‘door would be open’ for them to modernise their mainly wooden, one-storey, Tsarist city for the duration of the celebrations, and that they’d close it immediately when it was over, the local Party rushed to build a Museum, a Library, a Palace of Culture, housing, an Airport and the high-rise Hotel Venets before the tap of money and resources was turned off. In its first year of opening, two Poles, 70 Britons, and more than 3,000 East Germans arrived to stay in the Hotel Venets, and we get to read the inventory of difficult questions they answered (‘can we see how people live in those little wooden houses?’), and find out how hotel staff took it out on the guests. — Owen Hatherley, The Architectural Review

Published by Gluschenkoizdat.

Homepage header

Kozakov keeps a methodical record of his life. Starting at fifteen years of age, he writes his diary: detailed notes penned in 96-page standard exercise books, each entry beginning with air temperature and wind direction, describing occurrences at work and at home, and switching back and forth between musings on love and his place in society.

Moscow-based publishing house Gluschenkoizdat have come into possession of Nikolai Kozakov’s notebooks for the year 1962. Following extensive work on their transcription and preparation for print, the publishers present the present volume for the edification of readers, in conjunction with a radio drama. The publication of Николай Козаков. Дневник. 1962 (Nikolay Kozakov: Diaries. 1962) has been timed to coincide with the publishers’ summary exhibition Our days are rich and bright.

See the website at 1962.gluschenkoizdat.ru. There is also an extract in English, covering twelve days from the diary.

Art direction: Kirill Gluschenko
Designers: A. Glushkova, A. Moskovsky
Illustration: A. Koltchina

Chapter header (January)

English extract

Homepage footer

Chapter index

Book cover, 170 × 215 mm, 624 pages, ISBN 978-5-9906255-3-2, edition of 1,000. Gluschenkoizdat, 2016.

Cover of the radioplay, 2 LP, 88 min 41 sec, 8 pages booklet, edition of 300. Gluschenkoizdat, 2016