Tearsheets
Tearsheets
Grozny Nine Cities Project
Since November 2009 me and two colleagues of mine, Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko, have been working on the joint project in Grozny, Chechnya, which is now entering the postproduction stage. Inspired by a Thornton Wilder book, Theophilus North, the project centers on the idea of nine cities being hidden in one, and this gave the start to the narrative approach which explores nine specific aspects of the aftermath of two Chechen wars through considering them as layers hidden within Grozny. It will result in the web-documentary presented on groznyninecities.com, series of publications in magazines, a book and exhibitions. Here is a short portfolio of my work from the more than a year of work.
Uhvatio Maglu
A phrase in Serbian and Bosnian, it means to ‘catch fog.’ Used by a Bosnian man to me one afternoon in the rural wilds of eastern Bosnia, while drinking rakija, he used it to sum up the sixteen year-old hunt for ex-General Ratko Maldic, the most wanted man in the world after Osama bin Laden. Indicted in 1996 for genocide and other war-crimes by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Mladic is still on the run nearly twenty years later. Almost certainly hiding out in Belgrade, he is sheltered and protected by diehard nationalist elements still loyal to him and the regime of now-dead ex-President Slobodan Milosevic. This project is a photographic representation of Mladic, his past, his sordid history and his grotesque legacy, but also of his enduring, immutable iconic status for the Serbian nationalist old guard. It illustrates where he has been and what he has done through a series of images of the places where he has been, stayed, lived, operated, hidden and visited.
Violence in Ingushetia and Daghestan
Two republics, bordering Chechnya, officially were never neither in war nor declared independence from Russia. Anyway, currently they have become the places where the majority of security cleanups, kidnaps, killings and terror attacks on Russian territory take place. Since 2008 I keep traveling there on assignments and hope to contribute to the objective coverage of the situation.
Stories of War and Lust
In late 2009 wondering around the streets of Tel-Aviv while working on the project which is still in progress I came into a book-shop in search for a something special to read, and here it was. Stories of War and Lust by Josip Novakovic, who writes in English even though his mother tongue is Serbo-Croatian. Pretty soon I moved to Bosnia, where I spent almost a year, having deeply fallen in love with Balkans. This story is my personal diary as I was diving deeper and deeper into Balkans. To be continued.
Heroes of Karabakh
In 1989, Nagorny Karabakh became the first hot zone in the former USSR. Today, 20 years later, Armenia and Azerbajan, which have been fighting over this tiny piece of land set between the Caucasus mountains, are still in the state of war. This story shows people, who were fighting each other during the conflict, and who all now say, they want peace.
Freedom Square
The breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia, which gained the recognition as an independent state on August 26, 2008, but only by Russian Federation, (and later by Nicaragua) has been fighting for its independence in different ways not only for these last 15 years after the end of the war with Georgia, but it's possible to say for ages. Once a powerful Caucasian principality with the autonomous status within Byzantine Empire, which even helped Georgian kings to fight enemies and gave them a shelter when they had to flee their castles - these legends are known by everyone in Abkhazia and told to every guest from outside - it was later seized by Georgians, then - by Ottoman Empire. Then Russian Empire came to install its power in Caucasus, which with the appearance of the Soviet Union again ended for Abkhazia to discover itself in the hands of Georgia, although initially it became the part of the Soviet Union as one of the republics. Soon after my arrival to Akhazia in Summer 2008 major events in the life of the republic started happening with the beginning of the new war in another breakaway republic, South Ossetia. It was obvious, that I followed the crowds coming to the main square in Sukhumi, Freedom Square, every time when something important happened. Sometimes people came with the guns to shoot in the air out of joy, sometimes they carefully held their children in their hands to vote for independence or watch a firework - but they kept coming till the September 30, when the parade, dedicated to the 15th anniversary of Abkhazia's victory in the war with Georgia, was held next to the symbol of this war -the destroyed House of Parliament of Soviet Abkhazia, which will be never renovated due to a major crack which can only let to demolishing the symbolic building Abkhazians want to preserve. It was a big kick in the Georgia's face to remind about the recognition one more time. After the anniversary celebrations were over, people felt they needed to go back to the things they normally do, they stopped partying and the square became empty. This story was over due to absolutely natural circumstances.
With war in the eyes
Portrait series of children from South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, who survived the August 2008 war with Georgia
Bury Your Enemy
How would you feel if you could see a cemetery of your enemies from your window? The people of Subbotino and Turitsyno, neighboring villages about 60 kilometers northwest of Moscow, have been living for decades next to a large common grave of hundreds of Germans killed in the battle for Moscow in the winter of 1941. Thanks to the volunteer gravedigger NGO called Trizna, which means "mourning for the dead" in Russian, the half of that grave, remains of 40 soldiers, were exhumed in the fall of 2007. To open the remaining part of the grave was impossible without the help of local authorities, because now it's covered with the brand-new road leading to the village of Turitsyno. The German War Graves Commission, operating here in Russia, in fact shows little interest to these graves, claiming that the Russian government does not give them enough land for the cemeteries. The remains of those that Trizna members have found in this grave, are still kept at the summer house of one of them. My project will be finished, when all the soldiers, including the ones, who are still under the road, will be reburied. I also want to find the relatives of those, who will be identified.
UAZIK
In August 2008 six people spent 2 hours on the roof and the hood of a Russian-made off-road vehicle UAZ, after it got stuck in the mountainous river Gumista in Abkhazia. They were by chance saved by a loaded log truck, which unexpectedly appeared in the area. I dedicate this story to the memory of my friend Astamur, who survived in this accident as we all did, but died in a car crash at the age of 29 some two months later
Primorsk. The Sunken Soviet City
For this project I chose the place, which is an iconic symbol of all the destruction and recession in Abkhazia even 15 years after the end of the war with Georgia. It's a story of people, not only stuck in an isolated place, but stuck in time and forgotten by civilization. Although now there are no fights there, and no one dies of hunger, I try to prove with the pictures, that the situation of this people is still a big human drama. Once a Soviet industrial enclave in the republic of Georgia, built to serve the needs of the Ingouri power plant, and a role model Communist city, the Black Coast city of Primorsk, is today overgrown by weed and swamps. Those 60 ethnic Russians out of 5000, who decided not to leave Primorsk, survive on subsistence farming in the most dangerous area of Abkhazia, the so-called lower zone, bordering Georgia, where, officials say, Georgian guerillas have the easiest access to Abkhazia. These people have to walk for 22km by foot to the regional center, Gali, to pick up 100-roubles ($3) Abkhazian pension, do not have proper IDs to leave for Russia and do not even have a chance to send their children to school. Moreover, they are now attacked by a channel they had built with their own hands for the needs of the Ingouri plants. Mile by mile, it is seizing the land. One of abandoned Soviet sanatoriums has already been under water, but now the houses are in danger. In fact, nothing really happens in Primorsk today, people just survive. The times when people had to hide their children in potato bags to protect them from being raped by both Abkhazian and Georgian gangs in the afterwar period had gone. But one can read the sense of isolation and despair from their eyes, that's why I decided to shoot Holga, whose quality of picture lets me stress more on emotions I feel each time I come to Primorsk rather on what's going on. This makes project a bit arty, but I still consider it photojournalism, because I tell the story of these people via their portraits and the pictures of their environment.