New Exhibit Brings Wilds Into Moscow

The term "freeriding" can be applied to outdoor sports ranging from skiing and snowboarding to mountain biking, and generally means going off the beaten track and into the wilderness.

However, a new project sponsored by NTV aims to bring the sport back into public view. The "Ride The Planet" project shows spellbinding landscapes where people are rare guests, ranging from the Caucasus Mountains and Kola Peninsula to the Southern Alps and the Nile River.

For the past three years, the project has followed some of the best Russian freeriders to locations all over the world, producing a staggering amount of photo and video content that will now be displayed to the public in Moscow. The exhibition will present action shots, landscapes and images of the quiet life, far away from the civilization to which we all have become accustomed.

"Mountains and freeride have become one of the most important things in our life," Konstantin Galat, "Ride The Planet" project manager, told The Moscow Times.

Konstantin has spent the last ten springs and winters in the mountains, mainly near Elbrus in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. "This project is an attempt to share the way we live. When I am there, being small, tiny and weak, among all these huge and beautiful things, created by volcanoes, wind and cosmic currents, in this moment, I feel like a part of this world more than ever," he said.

The exhibition will show work by "Ride The Planet" crew — Konstantin Galat and Oleg Kolmovsky — and the photography team: Vitaly Mikhailov, Alena Buslayeva, Sergei Shestikhin and Maxim Kopylov.

Additionally, the project will present some seminars and master classes devoted to photography and journalism with special guest Vladimir Yesipov, editor in chief of "GEO" magazine.

The project will also host a special CD release of the soundtrack, which includes tracks of Russian and foreign artists, as well as a concert by the Russian indie-pop band "On-The-Go."

"Ride the Planet" will on display from Dec. 4 to 8 at the Classical Photography Gallery, 23 Savvinskaya Naberezhnaya, Bldg. 1. Film screenings and the performance by On-The-Go will take place Friday, and tickets can be purchased at the Almaz Cinema Center, 56 Ulitsa Shabolovka, Metro Shabolovskaya.