© Elena Anosova

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Russian-Chinese border extends for over 4000 kilometers. Primorsky Krai, the southernmost region of the Russian Far East is where much of the eastern Russian population is concentrated. Here Russian and East Asian cultures and traditions historically coexist and this neighbourship forms the identity of those living in the region.

Elena Anosova offers a glimpse into this distant corner of Russia and captures pressure points in the exchange between two cultures and their mutual influence.

© 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.

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© Olga Kravets

Due to its extreme northerly location it experiences an annual 40-day long polar night from 3 December to 11 January. During this period, when the sun remains constantly below the horizon, a semi-twilight occurs each day for only a few hours around noon. For the rest of the time, the city is wrapped up in darkness.

The average daily temperature is below zero during most of the year, with up to 40℃ in December and January. However the city’s port is ice-free, as its waters are warmed by the North Atlantic Current.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, almost half-a-million people resided here, many of them attracted by the high wages in the shipping and fishing industries, part of the soviet labour policy to compensate workers for the difficulties of life far up north. The newly independent Russia couldn’t afford to sustain such high wages, which caused a mass exodus as people abandoned Murmansk in search of more hospitable climes.

The lack of sunlight and almost 8 months of Winter cause a number of health and emotional disorders like insomnia, mood swings and depression. Suicide and alcoholism rates are higher in the region than Russia’s national average.

© Olga Kravets

Located in Murmansk region, Teriberka village was recently hyped by media after director Andrey Zvyagintsev shot his Oscar nominated movie Leviathan there, depicting it as a town drowning in corruption and alcoholism. Unlike in the film, things are going fine there. The houses might be indeed run down, but the people are true North­ern­ers — not to freeze one needs to stay sober. They are incread­ibly hos­pit­able, they love their land, worship it and write songs to it. North­ern spirit stays strong.

© Max Sher

RUSSIA’S ONLY GULAG MUSEUM WILL NOW HONOR THE AUTHORITIES, NOT VICTIMS OF THE GULAG ANYMORE

High-security labor camp VS-389/36 that later became known as Perm-36 was created in 1946 and was initially designed for minor offenders. In 1953 it was converted into a prison camp for convicted policemen and security officials and was used as such until 1972 when it became a special ‘correctional’ facility for political prisoners.

Among those who served their terms in Perm-36 were Soviet dissidents Vladimir Bukovsky, Sergei Kovalev, Yuri Orlov, future Israeli politician Nathan Sharansky, as well as many Ukrainian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian and other political prisoners.
Eight of them, including Ukrainian poet Vasil Stus, died here after hunger strikes. The facility was closed in 1988 by the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

In the 1990s an NGO called Perm-36 was created. It opened a museum in 1996 to preserve the only Soviet gulag facility.
Museum has organized various human rights events and did a significant research that made it possible to document and showcase the histrory of Gulag.

In 2014 as part of a broader crackdown by the Russian government on civil society and human rights, the museum was stripped of government funding. In March 2015 Perm-36 stated it was finally closing. Regional authorities announced that now they intend to create a new museum that would foucus on history of the local department of corrections and evolution of prison technologies, without any reference to political repressions whatsoever.

© 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”.

© Olga Kravets

Driving up to the Barents seashore feels like heading to the middle of nowhere. Ironically, in winter the drive is much smoother and twice faster — flattened snow compensates 40 km of unpaved road. When I was first heading there, I was expecting to find an abandoned place under decay, with alcoholics starting their days with cheap Russian porto instead of espresso. What I found was nowhere near, making me fall in love with the place instantly. The houses might be indeed run down, but the people are true Northerners — not to freeze one needs to stay sober. They are increadibly hospitable — nobody would be left outside on a cold day. They love their land, worship it and write songs to it. When I fist came, the infamous house, destroyed in the final scene of Leviathan was being built, and rumours were circulating about “some filmmakers from Moscow”. When I came next time, I have already seen the film. The people of Teriberka of course didn’t due to Russia’s distribution restrictions, and it was not that they really cared. But I warned them, that even though I found the film absolutely genius, it portrayed a generic Russia rather than Teriberka proper. I warned them not to get upset or offended. Eventually they did. Unlike in the film, things are going fine there. Gasprom is promising again to come back and bring jobs. Igor’s got new lights for his disco and the village club stands shiny after renovation. Valera has become a local MP and now has real power to put his “Save Teriberka initiative into life”. Northern spirit stays strong.  Text by Olga Kravets

© Maria Ionova-Gribina

The idea came to Maria when her fellow photographer asked her to take his picture for a self portraits project. He asked Maria to make the picture as personal as possible. Portrait also had to reflect them both as artists. For Maria contemporary portrait is a lot about investigation. It has to answer or rather raise some questions. After thinking about it for a while, she has decided to assign him a role of the father of her children. That’s how the project began. “We do know much more about mother-child relations than we do about fathers”, Maria says ‚“how they interact with children, how that affects childhood development and how it reflects on both men and children”. Research on fathers is a fascinating field of study, which currently tends to raise far more questions than it answers, but while couples share many of the concerns about having children men have their own distinct worries.

Today, potential fathers who are scared of commitment are the attribute of modern western society. “Russian men are more immature than European men, for example”, Maria says. Statistics do show that the average marriage age in Russia has increased by 3 years since 90’s. But is it because it takes more time for a man to grow into parenting or has Russian institute of marriage transformed into “western model” with higher average marriage age and less premature marriages? Maria let’s a viewer decide by accompanying the images with quotes of her subjects.

The resume she makes for herself is that nothing is permanent; she is absolutely sure that men who are scared of the idea of a child today could become great fathers in the future. «It’s also so much about love, the majority of men I photographed said they were ready to marry a woman with kids from previous marriage if they were in love».
For the record, though divorced, Maria is not currently looking for a father for Luka and Fiodor.