Urban Discovery Saint Petersburg
Sekretiki: St Petersburg’s Hidden Pavement Treasures
A contemporary artist brings back a Soviet childhood game, embedding tiny objects beneath transparent resin tiles in city pavements.
In Soviet childhood, “sekretiki” were little hidden treasures: small objects arranged beneath a piece of glass and covered with leaves or stones. In Saint Petersburg, artist a l e s h a has reimagined this game in the urban environment.
Transparent resin tiles embedded in the pavement reveal miniature objects — a banana, a loaf of bread, a shot glass, a tulip, photographic film, a smelt fish and a hare. Finding them turns an ordinary walk into a small city-wide treasure hunt.
Vasilyevsky Island
- Loaf of bread — 5 Sredny Prospekt, V.O.
- Netting — 15 Universitetskaya Embankment
- Fried egg — 16/14B Bolshoy Prospekt, V.O.
- Egg — 19 Galernaya Street
City Centre
- Pear core — 52 Nekrasova Street
- Shot glass — 36 Nekrasova Street
- Bitten apple — 3A Efimova Street
- Photographic film — 3/54 Malaya Sadovaya Street
- Tube — 16 Solyanoy Lane
- Embroidery and a draft — 2 Kovensky Lane
Embankments
- Banana, beer can and paper boat — Fontanka River Embankment
- Autograph — 93 Fontanka River Embankment
- Smelt fish — Voskresenskaya Embankment
Petrograd Side and Beyond
- Popcorn — 35 Bolshoy Prospekt, Petrograd Side
- Hare — Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt
- Evolution — Kronverksky Prospekt
- Tulip — Konnogvardeysky Boulevard
- Inflatable dogs — garden by the Theatre of Young Spectators