Tower of Babel - in Nikola-Lenivets in Russia - Set on Fire. - Mar 7, 2022

Every year at Nikola-Lenivets, a large art park in a small village in the Kaluga region of Russia, artists gather to build a large wooden structure and then burn it to the ground. In March 2022, architect Ekaterina Polyakova built a model of the Tower of Babel for the annual Maslenitsa festival. The art park wrote in an Instagram post (translated via Google) on Feb. 16:

The Tower of Babel by architect Ekaterina Polyakova turned out to be of incredible beauty and Scale, a tower that you can climb and reach for the clouds! The height of the tower is more than 20 meters, it is filled with 120 cubic meters. used pallets and 200 bales of rejected hay (too hard for animal feed).

For the construction, wood was used from agricultural fields, which were overgrown and needed to be cleaned, and slabs - waste from the sawmill. The most beautiful Art object will be put on fire and burned down in a few hours, but will remain in the memory of the audience with a bright flash. We will never forget this fiery landscape!

While some social media users offered their own interpretations of what the burning symbolized, the artist also offered her thoughts. On the Russian architecture site Archi.ru, Polyakova said:

“It so happened that that very Tower of Babel was never completed because of the discord between people and entire nations. The current one, which we are collecting for Maslenitsa in Nikola-Lenivets, serves as a modern symbol of the same discord. The events associated with the pandemic have given rise to new conflicts and clashes. According to the biblical story, our tower will also not be completed, but the guests of Maslenitsa will be able to become co-authors and complete it on their own before it disappears in the fire.”

This art sculpture was originally designed to symbolize the societal conflicts that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the days after Russia's attack on Ukraine, the Nikola-Lenivets art park posted a message on social media stating that they hoped the destruction of this tower would serve as a reminder to "turn to peace with their neighbor."

Setting the Tower of Babel on fire, we hope that everyone will find the strength in themselves to turn to peace with their neighbor. Hold onto each other. No less surprising is the coincidence that this year, for the first time, Maslenitsa is scheduled not for Saturday, but for Sunday, March 6 - Forgiveness Sunday - an important date even for those who do not consider themselves to be believers. The centuries-old tradition of this holiday is to ask each other for forgiveness, reconciliation.

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I found this video that I'm sharing:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auvpRKTkvtM&t=126s&ab_channel=%D0%90%D1%80%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE

The title in Russian translated is: Tower of Babel in Nikola-Lenivets. Fire.