Topography of Informal Advertising (2014–2024)

This long-term photographic research documents the persistent presence of handmade advertisements by an anonymous refrigerator repairman across Makhachkala’s urban landscape. Since 2014, I have systematically recorded over a hundred instances of these inscriptions—each repeating the same brief message ("ремонт холодильников") and a six-digit phone number (932688), painted in black or white with a distinctive, sprawling brushstroke.

The project traces the evolution of this informal marketing campaign:

Temporal shifts: The repairman adapted to changes in the city’s telephone numbering system, updating old inscriptions with new digits before eventually abandoning the practice.

Spatial logic: The ads appear in peripheral and central zones, suggesting a deliberate, if intuitive, strategy of urban penetration.

Materiality and decay: The varying states of preservation—faded, patched over, or layered with newer graffiti—turn each inscription into a palimpsest of informal labor.

By mapping these markings, the work interrogates the thresholds between utility and art, private enterprise and public intrusion. The repairman’s absence (I never called the number) amplifies the paradox of his omnipresence: a ghostly entrepreneur whose campaign outlived its purpose. The archive remains open—a speculative monument to a disappearing form of vernacular communication.