Pavel Otdelnov’s latest exhibition, A Child in Time, extends the inquiry of his acclaimed Hometown project, offering a personal exploration of Soviet childhood in the 1980s.
Otdelnov came to adolescence in the Perestroika era, a malleable time of contested freedoms and passionate debate. Yet this was also an era of acute instability. There were chastening queues for rationed bread, crises gripped the nation, and for children like Otdelnov, the threat of nuclear war was a pervasive source of anxiety. Civil defence lessons vividly depicted catastrophic scenarios, and fears of annihilation were compounded in 1986 by the Chernobyl disaster. A Child in Time echoes the anxieties and dreams of this period, that shaped the identity of a generation often referred to as “the last Soviet pioneers.”
One strand in A Child in Time is Otdelnov’s reimagining of his Soviet school primer, where each letter of the alphabet carried a symbolic weight, subtly embedding Soviet ideals into the fabric of a child’s perception and language. This book made the rhetoric of propaganda feel as natural and familiar as the ordinary words of everyday life. Otdelnov’s Primer replaces the Soviet pictures with illustrations of his creative imaginings and angst. Primer is both a lens for understanding how ideology permeates early learning and a means of confronting the lasting imprints of this indoctrination.
In Television, another central theme of the project, Otdelnov interrogates how this medium affected him and shaped the cultural and emotional heft of the time. A programme like Good Night, Little Ones, with its charming animated theme, offered moments of innocence. However, this was invariably followed by the nightly news programme Vremya (Time), which filled households with a quiet sense of unease. There were prime-time broadcasts of psychics and hypnotists like Anatoly Kashpirovsky, a Soviet counterpoint to Billy Graham, who, instead of mesmerising audiences for financial gain, attempted mass hypnosis at the state’s behest.
Otdelnov’s paintings, conceived at this critical juncture in post-Soviet history, investigate the roots of the current disaster and how this indoctrination has shaped contemporary society.
A Child in Time. Exhibition View. APT Gallery, London
A Child in Time. Exhibition View
Monument. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 157x205
Landing. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 76x102
Peephole. 2025. Acrylic on wood. D 30
Schoolboy. 2023. Acrylic on canvas. 90x122
A Child in Time. Exhibition View
Kindergarten. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 157x205
Explosion. 2025. Acrylic on canvas. D 50
Till 16 and Older. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 91x122
A Child in Time. Exhibition View
Kashpirovski. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 45x61
No Signal. 2023. Acrylic on canvas. 100x120
Befriend an Elephant. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 45x61
Good Night, Little Ones. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 76x102
Zdravstvuyte, tovarishchi! 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 76x102
A Child in Time. Exhibition View
Бб. Abyss. 2024. Acrylic on canvas.140x105. NovoRiznitsa Balkan, Tivat, Montenegro
Лл. Lenin. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105. NovoRiznitsa Balkan, Tivat, Montenegro
Рр. Radiation. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Уу. Shelter. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Зз. Nuclear Winter. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Кк. Space. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Пп. Parade. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Тт. TV set. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Вв. War. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Сс. Soldiers. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Аа. Hurrah!. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105. NovoRiznitsa Balkan, Tivat, Montenegro
Аа. Hurrah! Version. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Фф. Fascists. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Я. Pit. 2024. Acrylic on canvas. 140x105
Primer. Exhibition View
Soviet Primer. Exhibition View
Primer
One day recently, I found a copy of my school primer from 1986. It felt as if I had accidentally accessed the fundamental grammar buried deep in my mind. Each letter was paired with a word that carried ideological weight — like the letter З, which was paired with Звезда (Star) and Знамя (Flag, in the sense of a state banner). My primer created a world where the words of Soviet ideology felt as natural as the names of household objects or the rituals of childhood games. Today, as the Russian education system is once again being ideologised by state propaganda, I find it particularly important to analyse how this was done in Soviet schools then.
The syllables in the primer and the large font letters remind me of onomatopoeic mumbo jumbo. It is as if there were no real words — or as if they were forbidden, much like the word War is banned in today’s Russia. What remains are only images and meaningless syllables, and the simple act of stringing them together can be dangerous.
I tried to imagine what my primer would have looked like if it had been illustrated with the things that were truly meaningful — and sometimes frightening — to me as a child. The letter З became the word Зима (Winter), leading to Nuclear Winter, paired with an image of children in gas masks. These children are taken from Konstantin Lopushansky’s film Dead Man’s Letters (1986), a vision of nuclear apocalypse.
I have attempted to recreate my Soviet school primer from 1986 — one where a schoolboy’s most immediate fears were war, death in a bomb shelter, and, of course, radiation (1986 being the year of the Chernobyl disaster). I have redrawn my primer in an effort to make it truly personal, reflective of my inner world. I believe that the same fears and dreams were shared by many late-Soviet children — some of whom have since become important politicians and ideologues.
This project is my way of delving deeper into myself by revisiting the foundational ideology embedded in my consciousness during my first year of Soviet school.
Pavel Otdelnov