Element Crew in Moscow
November 11, 2008 @ 5:00 AM
So this is the second bit of the Element travels from 2003. If you missed the first one last week, these are old photos that I dug out because Yves Marchon sent me a couple of links to these video clips from the same trips and I thought I might as well post the photos. Blow a bit of dust off the old negs. Some of these were used in an article in Sidewalk at the time, some were in Kingpin, one or two in Freestyler (RIP) and some never made it any further than the dip and dunk C41 chemical baths. As with the Croatia stuff, I’ve lost any text that went with these, but I’ll try to make up for it with some captions.
This is Bas Janssen, flipping a hubba that’s since seen a lot of action as one of the sure fire spots everyone visits when they go to Moscow. It’s in a public park along the Moscow river. Bit of a trek but really worth it.
Jean-Marc being young and reckless in the metro.
This thing was right around the corner from Hotel Ukraina where we stayed. We went back there with Tom Lock a few years later, but it was some sort of Casino instead of the shop it is here, so we got kicked off instantly. Janne on a front nose to fakie.
Albina Kirillova was one our two hosts for the week. She’s amazing. She’s done a lot of hosting since, but I think this was her first. She tried her best to think of spots she didn’t really know, she’d take us everywhere and sort everything out and never once complained when we did nothing but, when the spots weren’t all that.
Jean-Marc and a back tail on a round rail. I can never get enough of those.
JM again, switch bs flip by the Bolshoy Theater gap around the corner from the Red Square and a stone’s throw away from the Lyublyanka, which was the first stop on the road to the Gulag and death for hundreds of thousands of people in the past. The photo ended up an éS ad.
The other host. We called this dude the daddy. He was stressing the whole time. The distributor had put him in charge of our well being and safety, and he took his responsibility very seriously, poor guy. He went through about 3 packs of ciggies a day trying to keep us out of harm’s way.
One of the many tricks that went down the flower gap that week. Philipp Götz was an amazing skater. I’m not even sure if he still skates, we sort of lost touch at some point. I know he went to work in his family business in Austria.
