The statues outside his office highlight the Chirkunov's bold goal: to turn a Soviet industrial city into a European cultural center.
The key was to lure Marat Guelman, a cutting edge Moscow gallery owner, who admits he took up the challenge partly because he was going through a mid-life crisis. Guelman flew 1,400 kilometers and two time zones east, to this city on the edge of Siberia.
"When I first moved here, people said I was the only person who moved here of my own free will," Guelman said in an interview at PERMM, the city's new modern art museum. In the kind of re-use of old industrial space that is only starting in Russia, Guelman converted a Stalin-era river boat passenger terminal into an avant garde museum that draws exhibitors from all over Russia.
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