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East of the EU lies another Europe equal in size but far less well-known. Through stories by its best photographers we get an inside view. This is an ongoing project.
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Photographers

  • Alena Zhandarova
  • Alexander Chekmenev
  • Alexandra Demenkova
  • Alexey Myakishev
  • Anahit Hayrapetyan
  • Anastasia Tsayder
  • Andrei Krementchouk
  • Anna Voitenko
  • Daria Tuminas
  • Daro Sulakauri
  • Dina Oganova
  • Dina Schedrinskaya
  • Gennady Minchenko
  • Igor Moukhin
  • Igor Starkov
  • Inna Mkhitaryan
  • Irina Yulieva
  • Ivan Pustovalov
  • Julia Vishnevets
  • Kakha Kakhani
  • Karen Mirzoyan
  • Kirill Golovchenko
  • Ksenia Yurkova
  • Lucia Ganieva
  • Lydia Smirnova
  • Mariam Amurvelashvili
  • Max Sher
  • Misha Domozhilov
  • Natela Grigalashvili
  • Nazik Armenakian
Kursk Oblast

Kastornoe

by Alexandra Demenkova

This series of photographs is about Kastornoe, in the Kursk Region, Russia, which is the native place of my father. I used to go there when I was a child, both with my father and my grandmother; so, it’s a bit of a nostalgic work about memories, childhood, about the flow of time. I had a desire to go back there as an adult for the first time, (and the first time in about ten years), to go on my own, to meet my relatives, to see if there is still anything of what my father and grandmother told me about, of what I saw and remember myself.

I wanted to see a small drying up river where I went to swim, a pond where my father would fish as a boy. It happened naturally that one of my focuses, unlike in some other projects of mine about Russia, was not on poor people or people having problems with alcohol, but on children playing, swimming, enjoying life in spite of surrounding poverty. It is about joy and misery at the same time; what I saw there made me think about the circumstances of human life and death, the short and fugitive period of childhood, sometimes unspoiled by reality, however severe.

Back to Kursk Oblast →

Discovered regions

  • Minsk Province Belarus by Karen Mirzoyan
  • Volga Region Russia by Oleg Klimov
  • Penza Oblast Russia by Sergey Poteryaevby Troyka Union
  • Vologda Oblast Russia by Max Sherby Olga Ivanova
  • Astrakhan Oblast Russia by Troyka Union
  • Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti Georgia by Kakha Kakhani
  • Tula Oblast Russia by Petr Antonov
  • Kirov Oblast Russia by Alexey Myakishevby Nikita Shokhov
  • Krasnodar Krai Russia by Yuri Ivaschenkoby Vitus Saloshanka

All discovered regions →

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