“Hush City” is a noncommercial web-based project. Its media form is provocatively called a “sketch film.”

It is a well-known, carefully naive and consciously romantic story which happened once in present-day Minsk, a hushed, forgotten and frozen in time metropolis in Eastern Europe. The story takes place against the background of a city which has fallen out of the world. It offers an interpretation of so-called ‘usual’ things in the city and in the whole world. The project consists of a prologue, four parts and an epilogue.

Taking into account the peculiarities of the situation, we believe you will treat your media-experience like viewing a film. Keep in mind that the project behaves like film, which is why you cannot pause and navigate the play-bar.

The project is done completely in English.

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Concept

One.The City

«Hush City» is a sketch film in 4 parts: a story which happened once in Minsk.   
We hope the idea of the project is clear enough, nevertheless we’ve created this concept page to explain a few important things. Everything else is left to be understood by the viewer.

The story takes place in present-day (2007—2008 at the moment of writing) Minsk.   

Minsk is a strange, tiny Eastern-European metropolis. These days Minsk is the home to 1.7 million people. To compare, it has a much larger population than such European cities as Amsterdam, Stockholm and Vienna. Minsk located about 190 km from Vilnius, 550 km from Warsaw, 580 km from Kiev and 700 km from Moscow. In spite of this, Minsk is usually an undistinguished and easily avoidable spot on European maps.

After the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. in the early 90’s, Minsk became the capital of an independent republic. Nearby capitals such as Moscow, Kiev or Vilnius have grown significantly since then and have become well-known and remarkable in their own ways.

You can learn more about Minsk in Wikipedia

During the same time, surprisingly few changes have happened in Minsk. What visitors admit (as we also do) is that the city seems to be «hushed» in time. However, it doesn’t look like a cozy museum as many other European capitals do; the city more closely resembles a quite cheerless conservation of time.

One of the most typical (almost official) views of Minsk

Minsk on GoogleMaps

Although this concept page and the project itself have no intention of discussing the reasons why Minsk is a «hushed city», we will call it such.

Two.The Story

It turns out that we are speaking about an unremarkable (we seriously doubt if the word “typical” is suitable here) city. But, besides the city, there is a story and even the story doesn’t pretend to be original. (Do you remember, our characters admit it themselves in the final dialogue at the end of the film?) 

We have a familiar story
in an unremarkable city

But when you combine several normal elements the result is often unusual so let’s take a closer look.

First of all, you meet the people.  

Secondly, you meet Minsk, a forgotten metropolis in Eastern Europe. You’ll stay there for one year.  

Thirdly, you meet the story, which brings these two elements together as equally important entities.

The Storyteller is writing «Hush city» on the pavement

Fourthly, you meet the storyteller. He’s not only a part of the story but also has a special relationship with the city and he is in fact a part of the project’s technical interface which is intended to make the main idea clear. The storyteller himself is a light fairy injection into ordinary Minsk: we fill the routineness of the real city with a refreshing (and very meaningful) element. However, it is all about reality. We truly believe you can meet him on the streets of Minsk one day :)

And lastly, there is no project without you, of course, because you have to interact with the organization of the project to get the idea.

All these parts shape a very typical story which is nevertheless remarkable because it is the only type of story that can be meaningful and understandable in any part of the world.

The story has been told
many times before, but we’ve found
our own special and original way
to tell it yet again

One of the most beautiful ways to see the city

The name of the film is «Hush City». There are two aspects of the title.

The first, and more general aspect, uses «hush» as an imperative word. Cities (no matter what they are called: Minsk, London or New York) must step back and keep quiet when stories like this are happening.

The second aspect concerns Minsk only. «Hush» is the unfinished form of «hushed».  A «hushed city» is a very vivid description of Minsk. We look at Minsk as a surprisingly quiet city and this «quietness» in our opinion creates the circumstances which lead to the story’s ending in the way that it does.

The story is fiction.
All coincidences are accidental.

However, it is quite possible that a story like this one has already happened.

Three.Reason and Aims

The hushed city in early spring

We wanted to tell a simple, yet catchy, story about people who have to deal with the circumstances of life in a hushed city and in the whole modern world.  
We’ve aimed to tell the untold story of Minsk.

We’ve strived to make «Hush City»
a significant and useful experience.

We seem to think that the project can give a little boost to this hushed city. We hope it is a different kind of step forward and also a bit of fresh air as there are things worth changing here.

Four.The Media Form

«Pobeda» («Victory») cinema.

We have provocatively called the project a «film» many times already. In actuality, nobody has ever made a real film about Minsk of the 21st century. 

We’ve decided to be the first. But let’s face reality: we cannot create a film. So, we mobilized our skills, available technology, and equipment to create a special media-event. And that is why, of course, it is not a film, but it can definitely be called a sketch: the story is kind of sketchy and the production is rather sketchy, too.   

But of course it is a film :) And we hope you will treat your media experience like watching a film.

We’ve called the media form
of the project «sketch film».

We can regard the site as a cinema: that’s why you cannot pause and navigate the play-bar.

Five.The Crew

The city on a winter's evening

There are many people who have contributed to the project. Some of them knew each other before the project started and others were specially invited to participate. We met these people through LiveJournal (a popular blog service in the country).

The people involved are quite diverse and do rather different things in life, among them: DJing, copywriting, sound- and video-design, photography, event management, studying art and many others. 

You can meet all the contributors.

Six.Status, support and development

This whole journey, from vague idea to final release, has taken about two and a half years. During this time Minsk became a kind of playground for us.

«Hush City» is an apolitical
and noncommercial enterprise.

There wasn’t any financial support for the production of the project. 

Minsk is a mainly Russian-speaking city but the project is done completely in English. This is due to the environment of the project, which is the Internet. We wanted «Hush City» to be accessible and understandable worldwide. 

We believe the project has potential for further development.
We are working on developing it in an interesting way in another interactive media form. Check back later for more information!

If you liked the project and want to support it, the easiest and the most accessible way of doing so is sending the link to your friends. Thank you. 

We are open for any questions, contacts and offers.

*A couple of specific notes

There are some unusual punctuation marks which we’ve used intentionally; they come from Cyrillic text.