Черный Black

While I can't say I've spent any time in Russia (yet), I have lived for short stretches in Eastern Berlin - right on Karl-Marx-Allee (formerly Stalinallee). Modeled directly after Russian cities, lined by socialist classicism style buildings, the looming brutalist monuments on the horizon, DDR-era furnishings and decorations still present in the shops on street level, and the U5 U-Bahn line running underneath with the subway smell rising up out of potholes and underground stations wafting past every few blocks... It's nostalgic for me, and I crave it. As yzargor brilliantly illustrates, it feels steeped in a nostalgia and recollection of a bygone era. It has some aldehydic elements that ooze Eastern European atmosphere, a hint of varnish or lacquer, freshly rained on concrete, a touch of distant wet birch outside the window of a Khrushchevka decorated with decorative rugs, with a vase of old flowers or dried herbs in the back corner of the room offering a subtle reprieve and comfort from the monolithic metropolis surrounding you... Holynose have directly mentioned Brutalist architecture as a primary inspiration, along with their childhoods growing up in the outskirts of St. Petersburg and Moscow. "Black" and "Fog", to me, both brilliantly convey their origins, to a degree no other fragrance I've ever tried has. These fragrances are polarizing - much like brutalism itself - but honestly, I've yet to find a niche fragrance I truly love that ISN'T polarizing! Mediocrity is only found in the middle - crowd pleasing might earn the 5-star reviews, but my favorite fragrances are the ones that aspire to convey something more than just a pleasant, wearable scent, even if it means turning a few noses upward in the process.

I can hear paint, and ink, and something very brutalistic, like wet concrete and metal. Absolutely loving it.