Peter (2001 – 2015)

Peter, or Piter is the nickname given to Saint Petersburg, Petrograd or Leningrad, depending on how the authorities decide to change its name. The photographs by Carma Casulá recount it.

Peter, or Piter, the nickname given to Saint Petersburg, Petrograd or Leningrad – depending on how the authorities decide to change its name – by its citizens, has pivotal importance in the development of the country’s political and intellectual events to this old imperial capital born of hatred towards Moscow. More provincial and less sophisticated, it is experiencing a recovery of that old splendour that made it famous after years of government neglect. It is the bridge with Europe, very much supported by the figure of Vladimir Putin who was born there.

**Top:** Carma Casulá, cocina Ikea. **Above:** Carma Casulá, televisor casa privada

A complex, a contradictory city, overflowing with beauty and riches in its monumental centre with aromas of the old continent, it is the tourist heart of the country. Meanwhile, its austere Soviet peripheries are interspersed with the new blocks brought into being by a voracious urban development speculation. And very much marked by the Leningrad Blockade. The centenary of his founding in 2003 marked the turning point for this former imperial capital that was born for nearly three centuries of hatred to Moscow on a quagmire by zar Pedro I the Grande desire to build it the Russian court. And the city began to illuminate their buildings.

Carma Casulá, cocina casa clase media unifamiliar

2001 – 2015. In this period the shelves filled with food and the streets with cars, the price of transport for Russians and foreigners was made the same. Language schools, malls, vehicle and house insurance firms cropped up, hotels, hostels, and the gap between these major cities with the rest of the country was accentuated.

LENNIN pub

Carma Casulá, Lennin ambiente local

Ballroom and concerts

Carma Casulá, salon baile

Monastery Smolny

Carma Casulá, Monasterio Smolny

noble building of the beginning of the 20th century in the Centre

Carma Casulá, portal

Saint Petersburg State University

Carma Casulá, Universidad Estatal

Carma Casulá, Radio Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Carma Casulá, Museo Bloqueo Leningrado

Soviet suburbial building facade

Carma Casulá, barrio periférico sovietico

Carma Casulá (1966) is an artist and free-lance photographer from Barcelona. She had her PhD in Fine Arts from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid and was specialized in Photography at Istituto Europeo di Design/IED in Milan and at the International Center of Photography/ICP in New York. She combines her artistic projects on the anthropization of territory and landscape with the individual memories of these places, together with her photodocumentalism projects, like Peter (2001–2015). She takes part in several cultural projects, installations and exhibitions in collaboration with museums and institutions and combines her artistic and professional activities with teaching.