Which is popularly called the “System Unit” - due to its favorable location next to the Keyboard Monument. So it’s only logical that the next stop on our route will be the keyboard itself...
Since, according to our data, there is nothing like this anywhere except Yekaterinburg, we can say that the capital of the Urals has the largest keyboard in the world!
The monument was born from a simple idea - the artist was looking for a kind of “symbol of the era”, something that descendants would associate with our days. Already in the process of working on the project, another thought appeared - the artist suddenly saw this monument as a place where two spaces intersect: real and virtual. We communicate so often on the Internet today that sometimes we forget about simple human communication. Therefore, each key is also an improvised bench.
In September 2005, when the monument was being installed, the Swiss scientist Niklaus Wirth, author of the Pascal language, flew to Yekaterinburg. Having learned that the city is about to appear keyboard monument, he became very interested in the project and became its first visitor.
And after the installation of the monument, another meaning was born - already among cultural experts. “Klava” began to be perceived as a symbol of the union of Europe and Asia, which is especially important given the position of Yekaterinburg. Why? Yes, because the sculpture itself is dedicated to technology that came from Europe and symbolizes Western values: instant search for information, inclusion in the news flow, computerized world... But the object itself reminds many of the eastern “rock garden”. And the values there are already completely opposite: the ability to contemplate, reflect, observe... A keyboard that is conducive to live communication is an absurd phrase in itself, but for Yekaterinburg residents it has quite certain meaning. Meetings are often made at Klava, people come here for dates, and here you can meet people who like to read, dream, and draw. Naturally, they also come with laptops. There is enough seating for everyone.
Photo by Alexander Zaitsev.
Despite the considerable weight of the keys, by June 2011 several of them were... stolen. How this was done and who (and most importantly, why) needed the 80-kilogram concrete key is unknown. In August 2011, the monument was reconstructed.
Every city has local attractions that attract tourists with their uniqueness. In Yekaterinburg, for example, there is a huge grater, a monument to a bank card and a huge keyboard on the banks of the fast Iset River. interests many, because it still looks great, despite the daily active use of it “for its intended purpose.” Let's find out more about him!
History of the Ekaterinburg keyboard
Artist Anatoly Vyatkin, preparing for the next art exhibition, spent almost all his working and free time at the computer keyboard and suddenly realized that new symbol modern history- it's a keyboard! Each of us spends a lot of time typing texts or playing games. And you can’t do this without a keyboard. Therefore, there definitely needs to be a monument to the keyboard!
If you are wondering in what year Vyatkin’s idea was accepted with a bang and yet a monument to the keyboard was built, then the answer is that they did it in 2005. The final idea was developed by Arseny Sergeev and his colleague Nailya Allahverdieva. Of course, the design of the monument is simple and uncomplicated - a huge monument to the keyboard was installed on a fairly large scale of 30:1 on a huge area. The modern keyboard is more than a hundred years old and all this time it has been an indivisible part of any computer device.
Keys and the material from which they are made
They allowed to decorate the landscape of the Iset bank quite quickly - it was included in the program of the festival, which is held regularly, “long stories of Yekaterinburg.” The material from which the keyboard monument is made is raises many questions - every day it takes on not only the blows of the elements, but also active actions on the part of people.
When deciding what high-quality and inexpensive material the keyboard monument would ultimately be made from, the creators decided to choose concrete. It is quite durable and still gives the appearance of the smooth white keys of the original.
On the lower tier of the embankment, in the rain in October, 104 concrete keys were placed. They were not only bulky, but also heavy - the weight of the “gap” reaches 500 kg! The keys still display all the symbols that can be seen on a home keyboard - letters, numbers, symbols.
Many people don't know where is concrete keyboard monument, as this attraction is not included in the official guides. However, both residents and regular guests of the city love to relax near its huge concrete blocks in the form of keys.
- As already mentioned, the monument to the keyboard is an unofficial landmark, but it was from it that the red line began to be drawn, uniting interesting places in the city of Yekaterinburg.
- It was also important to decide what material the keyboard monument would be made of in order to minimize the risk of theft of part of the exhibition. This happened in 2011 - craftsmen were found who stole the top 4 concrete keys. True, why they need them remains unclear.
- When you arrive in Yekaterinburg, be sure to find out where the unusual but wonderful monument to the keyboard is located - local residents are sure that with its help it is quite possible to change their lives. This is easy to do - you need to step on certain keys to create a word (or phrase) that expresses a higher desire (health, money, promotion) and at the end be sure to press Enter. And if you want to completely “reboot” your current life, just jump on the delete, ctrl, alt keys.
The only concrete keyboard in the world attracts the attention of everyone who walks along the Iset embankment. The material from which the keyboard monument is made is its history and beliefs are interesting to many, and we were glad to surprise you with such an unusual landscape sculpture.
Breaking news
Marina Dokicheva.
There is a monument in Yekaterinburg, the existence of which most residents of the city do not even suspect - this is a monument to the keyboard.
The keyboard was created in 2005 as a special project of the festival "Long Stories of Yekaterinburg" according to the design of Anatoly Vyatkin. The producers and curators of the project were Nailya Allahverdieva and Arseniy Sergeev, who at that time represented the cultural agency ArtPolitika. The production of the project was carried out with the technical support of the Atomstroykompleks company. Despite the high popularity among citizens and guests of the city, the project never acquired the official status of a monument or landmark. Actually not recognized local authorities As a culturally significant object, the keyboard is nevertheless included in many unofficial guides to Yekaterinburg. In the spring of 2011, she began painting on the asphalt of the “Red Line”, passing through 32 main attractions of the city center.
The monument is a replica of a concrete keyboard on a scale of 30:1. Consists of 104 keys made of concrete weighing from 100 to 500 kg, arranged in a QWERTY layout. The keys are located in recesses at intervals of 15 cm. The total area of the project is 16 × 4 m. The surface of the keys is flat with raised alphabet and functional symbols, placed in the same order as on a regular computer keyboard.
The concrete “Keyboard” can be considered simultaneously both as a fetish of the computer era and as an industrial “rock garden”, a large-scale environmental experiment that forms a new communication environment on the territory of the city embankment of Yekaterinburg. Each button on the concrete keyboard is also a makeshift bench. The monument has become a cultural landmark of the city’s modern image and a new “brand”.
A positive response to the project is observed among all segments of the city's population. Monitoring the reaction of passers-by on the embankment showed that in 80% of cases the reaction of passers-by is enthusiastic, in other cases it is interested. Residents of the city are proud of the implementation of such a project on the territory of the city, in which they are primarily attracted by the non-standard implementation and modernity of the image.
Interesting facts about the monument:
1. Professor Niklaus Wirth, inventor of the Pascal language, who visited Yekaterinburg, expressed a desire to visit the project even at the installation stage.
2. The main city river Iset is now written on Internet forums as “I-network”, and next to the “Keyboard” it is proposed to place a monument to the modem. Residents of Yekaterinburg fantasize about the possible placement of a monument to the Monitor and the computer Mouse.
Creative thinking artists, of course, change the face of cities for the better. In Norway there is a monument to a paper clip, which was once invented there; in the USA, a monument to peanuts delights passers-by with a white-toothed smile. In the Russian city of Tomsk there is a monument to house slippers, St. Petersburg sculptors immortalized bread in bronze, and Krasnodar residents placed a huge granite wallet at an intersection (its stone twin lies in the Austrian city of Melbourne). In this non-standard row there is a monument to the keyboard, which was installed in Yekaterinburg.
A little history
Whatever we do at the computer, we invariably use this convenient and familiar device. The grandmother of the modern keyboard was “born” in the century before last with the invention of a mechanical device with a set of keys, when pressed, the corresponding sign was imprinted on paper. At first, the characters on the buttons followed each other in alphabetical order, but typing comfort was achieved only with the QWERTY layout, which continues to “live” on modern keypads.
Stone ode to the clave
The idea to create a monument to the keyboard came to Ural resident Anatoly Vyatkin. He came up with it while thinking about projects for annual festival"Long stories of Yekaterinburg." The sculptural composition is located on the embankment. It is a huge copy of a real computer keypad in a ratio of 30:1. Each of one hundred and four concrete buttons weighs from one hundred to five hundred kilograms and is also a bench on which you can sit and relax. As expected, symbols are applied to the surface of the concrete buttons. There are gaps of 15 centimeters between them. The author worked on his brainchild for about a month, and for another week the monument to the keyboard was installed using special equipment. The opening of the original sculpture took place in October 2005.
Modern city brand
The keyboard monument in Yekaterinburg did not impress the official authorities, therefore it does not have the status of a landmark of the Ural capital. However, it fell in love with Yekaterinburg residents, who consider it one of the most interesting and meaningful objects in the city. Travel agencies, without thinking twice, included the keyboard monument among the attractions and proudly display it to guests. It is from the concrete keyboard that the walking route begins cultural project“Red Line”, introducing residents and guests of Yekaterinburg to its history. And, by the way, the monument was included in the top ten most popular and significant places in the city. Moreover, the project is a contender for the title of one of the Children are happily jumping on concrete buttons, simultaneously learning the Russian and English alphabets. Couples in love make dates here, and young people have long coded the meeting place with the password: “Press the keyboard.”
Good idea
The author of the sculptural composition, Anatoly Vyatkin, claims that the monument personifies and perpetuates new era in the development of human communication. According to the artist, the keyboard is an attribute of the modern feeling of freedom and unity, the ability to feel part modern world. Of course, the image of Yekaterinburg greatly benefits from this simple and exceptionally successful monument, the first land art sculpture in the city.
The monument to the keyboard presents a curious sight from a certain perspective. The photo shows it and a stone house standing on the right, very reminiscent of a system unit. This composition is an inexhaustible source of imagination for the townspeople, who have already informally renamed the river flowing near the sculpture “I-network” and dream of seeing a monument to a modem and monitor, and maybe also a computer mouse, next to the concrete keyboard.
The keyboard was created in 2005 as a special project of the festival “Long Stories of Yekaterinburg” according to the design of Anatoly Vyatkin. The producers and curators of the project were Nailya Allahverdieva and Arseniy Sergeev, who at that time represented the cultural agency ArtPolitika. The production of the project was carried out with the technical support of the Atomstroykompleks company. Despite the high popularity among citizens and guests of the city, the project never acquired the official status of a monument or landmark. In fact, not recognized by local authorities as a culturally significant object, the keyboard was nevertheless included in many unofficial guides to Yekaterinburg. With her, in the spring of 2011, painting began on the asphalt of the “Red Line”, passing through 32 main attractions of the city center.
Design features
The monument is a replica of a concrete keyboard on a scale of 30:1. Consists of 104 keys made of concrete weighing from 100 to 500 kg, arranged in a QWERTY / YTSUKEN layout. The keys are located in recesses at intervals of 15 cm. The total area of the project is 16 × 4 m. The surface of the keys is flat with raised symbols of the alphabet and functional symbols, placed in the same order as on a regular computer keyboard.
Cultural features and assessments
The concrete “Keyboard” can be considered simultaneously both as a fetish of the computer era and as an industrial “rock garden”, a large-scale environmental experiment that forms a new communication environment on the territory of the city embankment of Yekaterinburg. Each button on the concrete keyboard is also a makeshift bench. The monument has become a cultural landmark of the city’s modern image and a new “brand”.
A positive response to the project is observed among all segments of the city's population. Monitoring the reaction of passers-by on the embankment showed that in 80% of cases the reaction of passers-by is enthusiastic, in other cases it is interested. Residents of the city are proud of the implementation of such a project on the territory of the city, in which they are primarily attracted by the non-standard implementation and modernity of the image.
In February 2019, the Yandex company published statistics on search queries of Russians related to museums, attractions and exhibitions. In the ranking of monuments, the monument to the keyboard was in 2nd place: it was ahead only of the Bronze Horseman in St. Petersburg, the third was the monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square in Moscow.
Object security issues
Before June 2011, several keys from the monument were stolen (keys F1, F2, F3, Y), and the Apple logo was applied to the ⊞ Win key.
In this regard, in June 2011, the head of the public art program of the Perm Museum contemporary art PERMM Nailya Allahverdieva proposed moving the keyboard monument to neighboring Perm. According to her, no one cared about it in Yekaterinburg, but the Perm museum was very interested in this art object.
But through the efforts of the Yekaterinburg initiative group, which included Evgeny Zorin, Lidia Karelina, and director of Litek LLC Nadezhda Zaostrovnykh, on August 17, 2011, the lost keys were restored. The renovation of the monument was made possible thanks to Anton Borisenko, director of the Union Trucks company, which sells and services trucks. The author of the monument, Anatoly Vyatkin, was present during the restoration work.
According to the project coordinator, Nadezhda Zaostrovnykh, thanks to the renovation, the famous Ekaterinburg landmark will now definitely not leave for Perm. “But the problem remains, I would like the largest keyboard in the world to be included in the register of monuments, protected by the state and no one could ever take it away from us. To do this, we have compiled a collective appeal to add the keyboard monument to the register cultural values, On July 30, 2011, on System Administrator Day, we collected more than 100 signatures and on August 4, 2011, transferred everything to the city administration. We are still waiting for an answer,” noted Nadezhda Zaostrovnykh.
At the instigation of Evgeny Zorin and like-minded people, regular cultural events began to be held at the monument, the main one of which is the so-called annual “Subbotnik on the Keyboard”. During the cleanup work, keys are cleaned and painted, and championships are also held in throwing non-working computer mice at a distance, lifting a bunch of hard drives, etc. In 2017, two volunteers from the USA took part in the painting procedure. Also on the last Friday of July, Sysadmin Day is officially held at the keyboard with similar competitions.
