Tucked on the southeastern toe of the Baltic Sea sits the Kaliningrad Oblast—a Russian exclave that doesn’t actually touch Russia Major; similar, say, to Alaska’s geographic relationship with the continental United States. To Kaliningrad’s north and east lies Lithuania; to the south, Poland. From near its namesake city, two “spits” of land span outward, flanking the dark Baltic like some kind of defensive anemone. This place was known as German (or East Prussian) Konigsberg, before July 4, 1946, when Stalin made it into the USSR (The Red Army had taken Konigsberg from Nazi Germany during WWII.) It was renamed for the Soviet president Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, who reportedly never stepped foot in the region. It’s where philosopher Immanuel Kant is buried. It’s where the current Russian president, Vladimir Putin, redeployed nuclear-capable arms last October (Kaliningrad, given its unique location and governance, has often been observed with tension by both “the West” and Moscow). And it’s where, today, Gosha Rubchinskiy showed his very strong Fall 2017 collection, which included a brand-new collaboration with Adidas.

Before the why, the how, and the what: Around noon, a select group of Russian and international editors was taken to a site called the Mariners’ House of Culture. The room therein, with faded blue velvet chairs (mine might’ve had a cigarette burn in it) and gold and white drapery, exhibited the sort of spare irreverence for which Rubchinskiy has become famous. As the show started, the soundtrack—from lost-era speakers stationed at both ends of the catwalk—discharged voice-overs in Russian. It became clear that as each model made his lap, it was he who was speaking.

“It’s a portrait of Russia now,” said Rubchinskiy of the monologues and the casting. Each mannequin hailed from somewhere in the federation, from Kaliningrad local to Siberia, thousands of miles to the east. “It’s a real way to show the country to an international audience. Some boys say, ‘I don’t know what to do in my life; I am just chilling and I have fun and I have skateboard.’ Others say, ‘I want to be an army service agent.’ Another says he wants to write a book.” Rubchinskiy’s friend and collaborator on the audio, a Moscow-based DJ named Buttechno, admitted a more ominous testimony: “One boy said he doesn’t want to die before he’s 25.”