The olfactory exhibition Red Moscow: A Woman in the Big City explores the Soviet perfume industry of the 1920s and 1930s. Featuring over 200 objects, from paintings by well-known artists to vintage accessories and olfactory installations, the exhibition tells the story of the beauty industry as a story of the city’s development and the transformation of everyday Soviet life. This journey is narrated through the voices of women: workers at the newly revived perfume factories and Muscovites who came of age alongside the iconic Red Moscow fragrance.

Tickets are now available at a special 25 percent discount until the 10th of July. The discount has already been applied.

This is the Centre’s first olfactory project. The curators have taken an experimental approach to researching the era of the 1920s and 1930s, assembling a wide range of data on the period’s olfactory impressions and making scent the central character of the exhibition. Smell becomes a carrier of heritage and memory, while perfumes are treated as independent objects.

The red Moscow itself, the young capital of the Soviet Union, was undergoing a rebirth in the 1920s and 1930s. In this chaotic urban environment that smelled of kerosene, face powder, cheap tobacco, and blooming lilacs, where constructivist communes stood beside old Moscow buildings and factory workers lived alongside NEPmen and the former bourgeoisie, Soviet perfumery was born.

The exhibition is divided into ten sections: Proletarian Moscow, The Former Brocard Factory, NEPmen’s Moscow, Monsieur Michel, Zhirkost Trust, Professor Bryusova, Comrade Zhemchuzhina, TeZhe Store, New Moscow, Afterword. The journey begins in the fast-growing Moscow of the 1920s: visitors will encounter the sounds and scents of the time, observe the revival of a soap factory, and explore the hidden side of life during the New Economic Policy. From there, the story moves to TeZhe (short for the state trust Zhirkost), the umbrella organisation that managed all perfume and cosmetics production in the 1920s and 1930s.

The next chapters focus on Moscow in the 1930s, now a more prosperous city with its first boutiques; the time when Soviet perfumes began to enter the international market. The path to the end of the exhibition goes through the living room showing scenes from Soviet films of the 1950s to 1980s, following the lives of women growing up with Red Moscow. The final space features a new work created especially for the exhibition by Moscow-based contemporary artist Irina Korina.

For this project, stylised versions of popular Soviet perfumes produced in the first half of the 20th century were recreated: Red Moscow, Magnolia, Red Poppy, Kremlin, and Severny cologne. Visitors will also have a chance to smell the original 1905 L’Origan by Coty, the French perfume that inspired Red Moscow. In addition to these perfume compositions, the exhibition features everyday city scents from the 1920s and 1930s: kerosene, lilac, bread, creosote, tobacco, chocolate, soap, the public bathhouse, and more. The curators collected and studied over 400 personal accounts describing how the city smelled at the time.

An olfactory highlight of the exhibition is the Perfumer’s Organ, a perfumer’s workstation, that visitors can use to explore seven isolated fragrance notes from Red Moscow. Visitors can also adjust the scent’s tone by varying the concentration of its components.

The olfactory elements were developed with the support of dsm-firmenich, Givaudan, Greenwax, SensoryLAB, Arnest UniRus LLC, and the NMZhK Group.

The exhibition includes visual artworks such as paintings, graphic arts, decorative objects, posters, and photographs. Featured artists include Yuri Pimenov, Konstantin Yuon, Alexander Samokhvalov, Aristarkh Lentulov, Igor Grabar, and others. Also featured are perfume bottles, gift boxes, powder compacts, everyday objects, labels, and posters from Irina Vorobyova’s private collection.

More than 25 Russian museums and private collections are taking part in the exhibition. These include the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Historical Museum, the Mayakovsky Museum, the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, the Museum of Moscow, the Roman Babichev Collection, the Rodchenko and Stepanova Archive, and the private collection of Irina Vorobyova, among others.

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Curators: Daria Donina, Elena Zheludkova
Exhibition Architecture: Yulia Napolova
Graphic Design: Anna Naumova

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As part of the public programme, two lecture series will accompany the exhibition. The first, curated by literary scholar Lyudmila Alyabyeva, will focus on women’s fashion in the 1920s and 1930s and explore the trends of the time. Speakers include Olga Weinstein, Ksenia Gusarova, Maria Terekhova, Asya Aladzhalova, and others. The second series will be led by co-curator Daria Donina. The speakers will explore scent and the interdisciplinary study of olfactory heritage, from everyday life to neuroscience.

While the exhibition is open, visitors can take part in the Scent Laboratory, a family-friendly series of workshops in soap- and candle-making, and even try their hand at creating perfumes. Outdoor classes in foxtrot and boogie-woogie will help recreate the spirit of the time.

The Centre’s city walks will expand into a Smell Walking format, where scent becomes a way of exploring urban space. Led by cultural historian and industrial heritage expert Inna Krylova, participants will discover the Presnya and Basmanny districts through the smells that once defined them and still linger today.

The musical programme will include a concert by soloists from the musicAeterna orchestra and a performance by TERELYA, whose romantic indie pop is known for its distinctive feminine vocals.

To accompany the exhibition, Zotov.Kino will present two film programmes. The first, developed with the Moscow School of Cinema, is titled Anatomy of Horror: Women’s Bodies on Screen and examines how contemporary cinema, through horror, science fiction, and realism, engages with themes of the female body, its freedom, transformation, and resistance. The second programme is curated by students from the Seance School and the Zotov Centre’s team, and explores the complex, nuanced, and evolving image of women in Soviet film.