In July 2003, in the very heart of Nizhny Novgorod, a commemorative plaque was installed on one of the city's old mansions — a kind of "monument" to posted notices: a brass plate with tear-off strips, imitating the hand-written classified ads you can find on virtually every lamppost and fence. It is through posted notices that one can most quickly sell, buy, exchange, or find almost anything. And no matter how hard the local authorities have tried to combat the unauthorized distribution of private commercial information — it has been useless. Neither threats of fines, nor appeals to civic conscience, nor attempts to train citizens to post their notices in designated spots have had any effect. Lampposts, fences, and, of course, building walls remain the perennial favorites for paper notices. So the notice cast in metal immortalizes our habits — habits we change only with great reluctance and difficulty. — It all came together so neatly, even though I first floated the idea to a Nizhny Novgorod publisher four years ago, — recalls the project's author, journalist Vladimir Klimychev. — He publishes a classifieds newspaper, so he was well placed to appreciate my scheme. But getting permission to install a commemorative plaque turned out to be far from straightforward. I had practically forgotten the whole thing when I suddenly got a call from that newspaper. "We're putting it up!" they told me — and here is the result. "Will swap: an English childhood (aristocratic ruins, school rugby team, the London Museum of Childhood, an Elvis haircut) for a childhood spent in Russia (an Orlyonok bicycle, school with an after-hours program, a cream-rose pastry in Chita in 1951). Call: 831-00-13-13" — reads the text of the notice on the metal plaque.

The author of the idea regards the venture he set in motion as just another of his eccentricities: — I am primarily a literary person, since I have a philological education. The text itself originally existed as a literary note in one of the three small books I have published. In that book I noted that the text of the notice was written "after motifs" inspired by the work of Igor Pomerantsev, who was my favorite writer at the time. And only later did the idea of creating a monument with this text occur to me. In other words, it all just happened by itself, and everyone liked it. I am used to being thought of as an eccentric. Is that so bad? After all, any person who has a hobby looks just a little bit like an eccentric.