Off Nevsky Prospect Life Among Leningrad’s Unofficial Artists Preface by Susan Griffin Off Nevsky Prospect plunges the reader into the world of Leningrad’s dissident artists under Gorbachev. As she works with the artists to organize and exchange of exhibitions with a small gallery near San Francisco, author Barbara Hazard draws us behind the scenes. In a smoky cramped apartment, the artist Yul speaks of the human rights protests that took him to prison. At a dinner, Elena explodes with frustration at the isolation of being a woman artist. Together with the author, the artists escape the city to toast the New Year in a bone-chilling country cottage, and celebrate a return of the spirit after fifty years of atheism in a midnight Easter service. No other writer has worked so intimately with as controversial a group of Russians as these artists. Off Nevsky Prospect brings to life the struggles of the unofficial artists to lead creative meaningful lives in times of upheaval. Introduction by the author Occasionally one stumbles upon a slice of events, a cross-section of the geology of an era that allows one to become witness to crucial changes in the lives of others. It so happened that, though a project dreamed up at a rural California art gallery in the fall of 1986, I became involved with a group of Leningrad artists during the first years of Gorbachev’s move into power. As we struggled to realize our dream of an art exhibit of their work in California, I was offered a unique glimpse into Russian culture just as the lid began to open.