The pursuit of perfection (2024) Photography by Ekaterina Kastalskaya

The picture was taken by photographer Ekaterina Kastalskaya on February 11, 2024 in Tsaritsyno Park, Moscow.
It was an unusually sunny day for the last month of winter. On Sunday there are traditionally many people in the park, despite the frost. Muscovites and tourists are walking and skiing.

The photograph was shot on SFL T-42 ISO 400 black and white negative film. This is Tasma Type-42 aerial film with a large amount of silver.

In the photo we see a tree and the "Mermaid Gate" in the Tsaritsyno Park. Their other name is "Mermaid's Dwelling".
According to legends, in the XIX century on the lawn in front of them girls from the surrounding villages gathered on the days of the widely celebrated in Tsaritsyn holiday of the Trinity and led round dances for the "rusal week".

The official name of Rusalka's Gate is Arch-Ruin on the island.

It is one of the earliest buildings in the Tsaritsyn Park. It was designed by architect I. V. Egotov presumably in 1804. It has an exclusively decorative purpose. The island with the Arch is located on the Upper Tsaritsyn pond opposite the Nerastankino pavilion.

After the meadow in front of the Nerastankino Gallery was finally cleared in 1807, the Arch formed a view pair with it.
One of the best pictures of a water walk along the Upper Tsaritsyn Pond was the sun shining Nerastankino pavilion, visually inscribed in the opening of the Arch.

In the XIX-XX centuries the Arch on the island was not restored. The turret was lost, most likely, in the second half of the XIX century. Traces of the existence of the canal-duct were traced until the 1990s, when the middle part of the arch span collapsed. As a result of restoration 2006-2007, the Arch on the Island was restored without reconstructing the canal, as well as the turret and the embankments on the sides of the arch.

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