Made in Zvizzchi
Zvizzchi, Archstoyanie and Moscow Biennale RU
July 2013

What is produced in the Russian village Zvizzchi after they lost their agriculture production and the daily income during perestroika? To point out the home-made produce and local skills Wapke set up the open source brand “Made in Zvizzchi”.


Wapke Feenstra, Georgy Nikich, Olga Gartman, Алина Деревянко, AMK, Kartoschkino, Archstoyanie team, Village School Zvizzchi, and all villagers from Zvizzchi.

The former kolkhoz is meanwhile a ruin. These villagers had to reinvent their live-style and culture over the last two decades. Which means that service to summerhouse gardens, rebuilding sauna’s and guiding tours in the nearby sculpture park Nikola Lenivetz is done by former agronomists, veterinarians and engineers. Beside this free-lance services they are quite autarkic; born out of crisis. To point out the home-made produce and local skills we started the open source brand “Made in Zvizzchi”, started to collect knowledge and list the skills, and designed a small shop vitrine for the existing village shop. The community hall showed that year a self-made photo exhibition about current village life and next to the village school a vegetable garden for knowledge exchange where active agronomists from Moscow could catch up with skilled growers from Zvizzchi.
Zvizzchi studied its geology with a visiting geologist and Wapke made an animation about 600 000 000 years of rivers and soil. We also found out that there is clay in Zvizzchi, good-quality clay suitable for moulding and firing. So it was explored as the raw material for ceramics Made in Zvizzchi. We were a part of the Archstoyanie Festival 2013, and later in the 5th Moscow Biennale. The project was part of the NL-RU year and AMK-Moscow.
The brand is still active and run by villagers.

Our shop in the village shop 2013.
A Salad-BLOG by Wapke.
About the 5th Moscow Biennale.

This website documents the work of Myvillages from 2003 to 2023.

To find out where Myvillages is working at the moment visit ruralschoolofeconomics.info and villageplay.net.
All our project websites are listed at “about us”.

Contact us at info@myvillages.org