But who are they in reality and why do they convert?

The fact that there are ethnic Russians in Russia who choose to convert to Islam was largely unknown before the killing of Said Buryatsky (born and Alexander Tikhomirov) in Ingushetia in 2010. He was an Islamist militant leader in the Russian North Caucasus, the chief rebel ideologist and the regional counterpart of Osama bin Laden. There was one particularly striking fact about him – he was born to a Buryat Buddhist father and a Russian Christian mother and converted to Islam at the age of 15.

This event gave the basis to think that all of the converts were picked and brainwashed by the terrorists. However, the ethnic Russian Muslim community claims they all had totally different reasons to do so: adopting a spouse’ religion; fashion//trendiness; the opposition of Islam to the system such as current Russian State due to it’s anti-dogmatism; sufism; practicality of Islam, business, bureaucratic or even criminal reasons in predominantly Muslim republics such as Bashkiria and Tatarstan, and finally, adopting Islam while serving as a soldier in Afghanistan or Chechnya.

The current Russian State heavily building upon the religious Orthodox identity, sees the increasing number of Muslims among those who should be Orthodox by blood as a slap in the face – the lists of converts are taken from the imams, the people are summoned to questioning, their fingerprints are taken, they get arrested, and eventually, most of the ideologists and intellectuals have to flee.

In early 2014 a Chechen friend asked me as a journalist to help her Russian Muslim friend in trouble in Turkey. While the only thing I could do is to send out his call for help to the employees of the international human rights organizations, we did start a dialogue with this man and eventually, thanks to my work with Muslims in Chechnya, I was granted access to the wary community of exiles in Turkey.

They chose this country for being European and Muslim at the same time, but there are three problems about it: Turkey doesn’t quite understand who are the “Russian Muslims”, as opposed to Russian Chechen, Tatar and other Muslims. They therefore suspect them of being sent to Turkey as Russia’s intelligence agents under the pretext of exile, so they happily give them back to the Russians once Moscow asks for certain people, even at times when Erdogan and Putin seem to not be getting along well. In a latest development, many get arrested on suspicion of being ISIS members.

While I already have enough material from Turkey, I am seeking to finish the project this year in Russia and Ukraine. I intend to visit four specific places that I picked up after a lengthy research: a village outside of Krasnodar where the vast majority of inhabitants have converted to Islam in a trend started by a local doctor whom all of them respect; in Tyumen where security services are know to be the most harsh on converts; in Astrakhan, where converts are believed to often radicalize; and finally in Crimea. De jure Ukrainian peninsula is vital for this story, because before Russia occupied it, people used to enjoy complete religious freedom under Ukrainian government. Plus many Ukrainians and Russians living there discovered Islam because of Crimean Tatars, Muslim ethnic group.

Telling the story of converts from Russia has a specific value, because Christianity and Islam have coexisted on the country’s territory for more than a thousand years, and historically Islam is second religion in Russia. The arguments like “it is religion of migrants” make no sense here. People have right for religious freedom and right not to be branded as terrorists if they have not committed any crime.

© Egor Tsvetkov

Russian photographer Egor Tsvetkov has carried out an experiment to show how easy it is to identify complete strangers. He got the idea for his project from a new facial recognition app called Find Face. For two months Tsvetkov photographed people who were sitting opposite him on the subway trains in Moscow and St.Petersburg. He then used the app to find the person’s profile on VK, the biggest Russian social network. At the moment, Find Face created by Russian developers only works with VK, but the developers have big plans ahead.

«I just used software that was openly available», he says. «I didn’t buy any expensive program that is out there or coded something myself. The whole idea is that anyone can do the same thing as I did. Over the last decade, people grew accustomed to being more open on social networks rather than in public. This kind of digital narcissism makes every individual a potential target for all sorts of invasions of privacy and blurs the boundaries of private and public”

© Elena Anosova

The story begins in the colony for first time offenders and then moves to colony for repeat offenders and a settlement colony. Both young girls, who are still quite uncertain about their future in the first time offenders colony and women who have been marked by being jailed several times in the repeat offenders colony present themselves in a way that changes the viewer’s idea of life in prison.

“I came there as an artist, because I wanted to answer some questions about my childhood. But there was also a shift in my perception of these women as time went by, and I realized I wanted to bring attention to the social problems that these women face,” Elena explains as she revisits her experience during this project.

The Russian penitentiary system doesn’t have an effective infrastructure needed to support people who are released from jail. This is especially hard for female prisoners because crimes committed by women usually are the result of years of violence towards her or her children. They are deeply scarred both psychologically and socially and are labeled as ‘criminals’. Most of them, once entering the system, are forced to commit consequent crimes because when released, they have no means to find a job or fit in a society.
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Prison is like a small model of our society, but we tend to think of it as a different planet,” the author concludes. ”I shot the series so as to draw attention to the fact that these women need to be rehabilitated after they are released, and need help reintegrating into society.”
‘Section’ was awarded the granв prix of the Andrey Stenin International Competition for Photojournalists, and won the documentary prize at the Baltic Biennale for Photography.

© Konstantin Salomatin

Every day an average of three tajiks become victims of racist attacks, police brutality, dangerous working conditions and unsafe housing. Nevertheless they still come to Russia, coping with all hardship for the chance to earn four times more than they would have at home. Surprisingly enough, it’s not always family’s day-to-day living they save for. For thousands it’s a wedding ceremony.

In Tajikistan, live swirls around weddings. In the country, where 47.2% live below the poverty threshold, and 80% of the employable population work abroad as labour migrants, the amount of money spent on weddings per year equals the country’s budget of $2 billion. People save money for weddings for years, put it all in a ceremony of a lifetime leaving the new family’s provider with the need to hit the road again, now to earn the living. Yet despite all odds Tajiks all over the country still throw fabulous celebrations.

Dazzling colours of joyful ceremonies are quite a contrast to the behind-the-scenes reality.
The wedding industry is probably the only one with stable income, and it’s the country’s major industry encompassing entertainers, singers, musicians, restaurants, cameramen, photographers, sellers of wedding dresses and many more.

In 2013 Tajik authorities have issued a law that limits the number of weddings’ guests, wedding budget and even the hours a reception in the restaurant can last. But nothing can change the fact that for Tajiks the wedding celebration has literally become the most important day of their life and weddings last at least 3 days anyway.
Brides change up to 20 dresses that have to shine and sparkle, and a 200$ per meter fabric straight from Emirates is a preferred choice. For Tajiks a wedding is something that you have to do properly, by the tradition. A show that you put up for the neighbourhood and beyond, that makes you look good, like you can afford it. You can hardly tell the difference between a rich family wedding or a very poor one. They will do their best to fit in. Even if the whole family will end up with debts that only several years of work can cover. Even with the legal limits, Tajiks say, to pay for a wedding a total of four people from both sides have to work for at least a year abroad to save the money.

With a wedding being just a ceremony that celebrates marriage, marriage itself raises many more issues. The majority of marriages are still arranged. Men usually leave the country from the age of 16. Then they go back once the parents has chosen a wife, marry her, make kids and leave again. They either work abroad for an average of 10 years and then go back home with the savings, or sometimes just leave forever. Tajikistan has been branded as the country of the missing men.

© Lilia Li-Mi-Yan

In rich houses Service Personnel such as maids, butlers, cooks and gardeners have been working at all times. All those professions took their places in world service industry, but in Russia those professions are still second quality occupations.

For applicants these types of work are something temporary, even a little bit shameful. Employers, in their turn, want to find someone who will do quality work. They evaluate professional skills of an applicant, realizing and suggesting that personal problems and issues of servants should be left behind.

And the moment comes when a new and yet absolutely unknown person appears in the life of a family, a person who should become irreplaceable as well as invisible, a person who will know daily routine better than anyone and at the same time will keep silence. He had and has his own life and ability to hide it is an important element of his professionalism, which allows him to keep distance.

Where is the edge when shown interest of one and hospitability of another do good, keeping meanwhile a certain barrier, safety and independence barrier? After all, knowledge leads to attachment, but that’s an absolutely different story.

There are stories of house owners and their servants. I didn’t change their places, showing their daily life. I wanted to lift the veil, putting in the foreground questions, “Who are these people?” “Where are they from?” “Where did they study?” “Do they have a family” “Why are they here?”

© Oksana Yushko

She started this project with a photograph of her own parents: her mother is Russian and her father is Ukrainian.
“They met and fell in love many years ago. My friends and family and I live in two worlds, in two countries outside international borders and prejudices. Recent events have shocked us all. There are terrible things happening. But this photo series isn’t about politics; it’s about people”.