Introduction to Moscow sticker art

Stickers are smaller, less readily noticed cousins of large graffiti pieces or tags. They often hide on the backs of metal signs or traffic signals, where they are most likely to go for some time without being removed. Often, the design of a sticker will be immediately familiar as belonging to a prolific graffiti writer or crew. This is a very popular form of street art in the US, and it's more and more widespread in Moscow. Here are a few examples that I've noticed recently:


"S novym godom" on street sign on Staropimenovsky Pereulok, April 21, just before 7pm. This one is rather amateurish, although in a way that makes it more charming.


"Moora destroy this town" - the photo is of a ski-mask-wearing youth brandishing a spray can, in case you couldn't tell - behind school on Degtyarny pereulok, 8:19pm, April 22.


Stickers on back of street sign, Petrovka St., 11:59am, April 23.


ag4t (the tiny caption says, "saint petersburg 01") sticker depicting the infamous "gorbaty" ("humpbacked") Zaporozhets 965 (a design based on the Fiat 600) on the back of a street sign, Petrovka St., 11:59am, April 23.


Closeup of Zachem sticker - the smaller text just repeats the word "wanted" several times - on the back of a street sign, Petrovka St., 11:59am, April 23.


This Zachem sticker has a judge saying, "3 years for sure" (3 goda bezuslovno) a play on words achieved by adding a prefix to the adverb uslovno, which in Russian both means "conditional" and refers to a suspended sentence. On the back of a street sign, Petrovka St., 12 noon, April 23.


Waste & Sick Systems stickers on back of a street sign, Bol. Dmitrovka St., 12:36pm, April 23.


Sticker parodying real estate ads (the text reads, "Will rent! Will let!") on an air-conditioning unit in the entrance hall to the Tverskaya & Pushkinskaya metro stations, 12:49am, April 24.


On another air-conditioning unit in the entrance hall to the Tverskaya & Pushkinskaya metro stations, 12:49am, April 24. I've seen this blue/green up/down arrow design elsewhere on walls, although I'm not sure what it means.


MNE, the spiral (which I've seen painted on walls also), and something incomprehensible with a balalaika, on an air-conditioning unit in the entrance hall to the Tverskaya & Pushkinskaya metro stations, 12:49am, April 24.


SAC sticker (the masked youth in this image is making a couple of rude gestures, just in case you can't make that out) on the side of a traffic signal at the corner of Tverskaya Ulitsa and Gazetny Pereulok. In the background are WWII-era trucks rehearsing for the Victory Day parade. 8:07pm, April 25.


Stickers on back of a traffic signal at the corner of Tverskaya Ulitsa and Gazetny Pereulok, 8:07pm, April 25.


Stickers on back of a traffic signal at the corner of Tverskaya Ulitsa and Kamergersky Pereulok, 8:40pm, April 25.


Stickers (including repeats of the cheese grater and the spiky dog, a sticker by Moora, and one by fairly prolific writer Bigud' - the word is the singular form, which doesn't exist in the dictionary, of "bigudi," which is how you say "hair curlers" in Russian) on the back of a traffic signal on Triumfal'naia Square, 10:09pm, April 26.