Space 1516.
Back to non-existent country
(2019)

"Space 1520"  is a common way how railway workers calls a territory of former Soviet Union and parts of Mongolia. And that is all because of the width of the railway track, which ranges from 1516mm to 1528mm.

In my opinion, that is the best name for a country that has long since ceased to exist on the Earth’s map, yet it is still present in memories of a pseudo-stable life, scarcity and tasty ice cream. This story is about both different letters and nationalities in a vast territory. About shattered mosaics, Soviet lettering and the eclecticism of culture. And, of course, about my grandmother, who still blindly believes in Soviet happiness.

Briefly, one of the tasks in the Projector Design School was to make a stencil logo as a branding for any territory. It could have been Kyiv or Vancouver, and the same time I was really surprised by the fact about the strange name of the territory of the Soviet Union and suddenly all the puzzles got together: the abstractness of the concept, the stencil on the X-ray and the transparent glass placed in post-Soviet concrete-brick-railway landscapes of Poltava.

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