Unique, epic, multidisciplinary, and ever-changing project created by the Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky. The project combines film, science, performance, spirituality, social and artistic experimentation, literature and architecture. In September 2009, an “Institute for Research into Physics and Technology” was built within a derelict swimming pool in Kharkiv (Ukraine). Several hundred people left their everyday lives to go back in time to the Soviet Union, taking up residence at the Institute in a spatially and temporally parallel universe. It was a meticulous historical simulation where everything, from uniforms to kitchen appliances, food, money, and vocabulary, matched the objects and habits of the time. The Institute had its own newspaper (with daily bulletins informing the participants of historical events from the time) and the currency used was the rouble.
