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VISARUN

An Immersive
Documentary
about Waiting

For some people rebuilding their lives in Serbia, staying meant leaving and returning every thirty days.

Experience in VRChat Watch the trailer

by Georgy Molodtsov / Film XR.
Standalone Quest · PCVR · Windows desktop.

Staying
means leaving.

A visa run is a brief trip out of a country to seek a new period of temporary stay on return.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands of Russians opposed to the war moved to Serbia, where they could enter without a visa. Not all intended to stay. But remaining came at a price: for those relying on successive thirty-day stays, life became a cycle of departures and returns.

Sremska Rača, Serbia.
The real kiosk, photographed on a visa run.

Context

Why Serbia? Why another thirty days?

Visa-free entry made Serbia an accessible destination for people leaving Russia and Belarus after 2022. Its current rules allow ordinary passport holders from Russia and Belarus visa-free stays of up to thirty days. VISARUN follows people whose temporary lives became a cycle of departures and returns.

Where is Sremska Rača?

At this crossing, Serbian and Bosnian passport checks are separated by a bridge across the Sava. The kiosk stands on the route between them. Both countries were part of Yugoslavia; today this is an international border.

What is a Beli Karton?

The “white card” records where a foreign visitor is staying in Serbia. It is an address-registration document, not a residence permit. In VISARUN, these sheets become a paper record of a life lived temporarily.

Why this kiosk?

Saša Janez Mächtig’s K67 was conceived as a modular system: small units that could combine to serve everyday street life. It became familiar across Yugoslavia; an example belongs to MoMA. At Sremska Rača, an abandoned burger stand acquired another life: Ivan’s poem made it a shared landmark for people returning to the border.

Whose voices and photographs are these?

The work brings together five first-person accounts, Georgy Molodtsov’s scans and photographs shared around Ivan Pezikov’s public poem. The filmmaker is also part of this story: he encountered the kiosk on his own visa runs.

Why preserve this place now?

The Kuzmin–Sremska Rača motorway section and a new Sava bridge are under construction. VISARUN preserves more than the kiosk’s surfaces and changing light: it holds the words and encounters that made this place matter.

Can I visit on Quest without a PC?

Yes. VISARUN runs directly in VRChat on standalone Meta Quest, as well as on PCVR and Windows desktop. On Quest, open VRChat, search for “VISARUN” and choose the world by GeorgyMolodtsov. You will need a VRChat account and an internet connection. This is a VRChat world, not a separate app.

Watch the trailer.

Open on Vimeo
Ivan “Neudalimo” Pezikov · Sremska Rača

Hello,
lover of tourism.

Ivan “Neudalimo” Pezikov writes his poems into public space. In May 2024, on a visa run, he placed five lines on this kiosk. Opening with “Hello, lover of tourism,” the poem speaks to people whose journeys are anything but a holiday. People began returning to read it — and sending him photographs.

While living in Serbia and waiting for his residence permit, filmmaker Georgy Molodtsov made the same monthly journeys. During one wait at the border, he began scanning the kiosk and Ivan Neudalimo’s poem. What started as an experiment with Gaussian Splatting grew into a documentary about waiting and lives that remain temporary.

“My friend, I hope this
was your last visa run.”

Ivan, recalling his reply to those photographs.
From his testimony in VISARUN.

Read the poem
Hello, lover of tourism.
A crumpled month, right?
Seems we still can’t return.
Well, since you showed up,
Smoke, then go back.
Здравствуй, любитель туризма!
Скомканный месяц, правда?
Кажется, мы пока невозвратны.
Ладно, ну раз уж явился,
Кури и иди обратно

Ivan “Neudalimo” Pezikov · May 2024.
English translation used in the experience.

Ivan’s original post

Others had
been here, too.

Before there was a virtual world, there were photographs, messages and people recognising one another in the same five lines.

“Once a month, we come here to read it again.”
Olga, photographer
From her testimony in VISARUN.
“First visa run in my life. It had to be captured and left here.”
From a visitor’s original post
English translation.
“Whoever you are, thank you.”
From a visitor’s original post
English translation.
“The legendary abandoned burger stand, the Booth of Pilgrimage.”
From a visitor’s original post
English translation.

A real place.
An island of waiting.

The kiosk is real. The island gives form to the feeling of being between a lost home and temporary refuge.

Held in light.

Captured using 3D Gaussian Splatting, the kiosk becomes a photographic, three-dimensional presence you can move around. Scans made in different conditions preserve its weathered surfaces and the changing light.

From the border to the island

The real border location in day conditions
The VR island in day conditions
RealityThe island

Across three visits, uncover a poem, listen to personal testimonies and leave traces of your own.

Explore, care for the place, or simply wait. A phone call opens the next return.

Three returns.
A life between them.

The same island. Three returns.

A poem fragment encountered beside the kiosk in the first chapter

A poem, in pieces.

Find its lines among the objects around the kiosk. What begins as a passing encounter becomes a reason to return.

A phone call opens the next visit.

Arrive alone.
Find each other.

Come with friends or enter on your own. In VRChat, you can meet others who happen to be waiting on the island — just as you might at the real kiosk.

You share the place, but not necessarily the chapter. You might be on your third return while someone beside you is only beginning their first.

Holding a collected rubbish bag beside the bin

Small acts of care.

Pick up bags, cigarette ends and empty cans. Looking after a place changes how it feels to wait there.

A shared space.
Inside and outside VR.

A possible exhibition format places the PCVR journey inside a shared, wraparound projection. The island surrounds visitors beyond the headset.

Installation concept: a semicircular projection surrounds seated visitors and a participant in PCVR
Wraparound installation concept · AI-generated visualisation.

One world, shared.

A guided live session can connect exhibition visitors with people joining remotely through VRChat.

Perfumer Daria Safranova / Storysmell created two scents for the installation. They explore how a temporary place becomes familiar and feels like your own: memories of the home left behind mingle with new attachments to a place where you may not stay.

For presenting venues.

Standalone Meta Quest with VRChat — no PC required. For PCVR exhibition stations, a Windows PC with RTX 3090 or higher is recommended. Both formats require controllers, headphones and stable internet.

Now open in VRChat · English · Standalone Quest, PCVR & Windows desktop.
Walkthrough and technical rider available on request.

Discuss a presentation
Georgy Molodtsov

Georgy Molodtsov

Paris-based documentary filmmaker, XR director and festival curator. VISARUN grew from his own experience of displacement and repeated journeys to this kiosk.

His work with VRROOM for Jean-Michel Jarre includes OXYMORE, winner of the 2023 Webby People’s Voice Award for Best Experiential Design. He also directed and produced MormoVerse: Under the Pillow, winner of Best Immersive Narrative at Raindance Immersive 2023 and selected for Venice Immersive in 2024.

From 2018 to 2023, he curated and produced Open Frame at goEast Film Festival. His practice connects documentary stories with places people can enter and share.

About the filmmaker
Creation & production
Georgy Molodtsov / Film XR
Art installation & poem
Ivan “Neudalimo” Pezikov
World design & Gaussian Splatting
Mikun Hatsune
World production
VVARP · Pavel Golyshkin · Danil Oborozhnyi
Music
Sasha Gagarin / Sansara
VISARUN · Georgy Molodtsov / Film XR · 2026Film XR