Russia Beyond Moscow
Russian Album is my visual account of journalism, memory, and everyday life in a Russian region beyond Moscow.
Russian Album begins in Tula, the city where I was born and raised, 190 kilometers south of Moscow.
The history of the Tula region is closely tied to industry, defense production, and the Soviet past.
Today, the Tula region is considered one of Russia’s electorally managed regions.
Here, everyday life, historical memory, and politics exist side by side — sometimes barely intersecting, and sometimes unexpectedly appearing in the same frame.
Some of the photographs collected here grew out of my reporting project on small towns in the Tula Region; others were taken during my work as a journalist in Tula.
They are an attempt to document everyday life beyond Russia’s largest metropolitan centers — Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Yekaterinburg. Through these images, it is possible to see not only the Tula region, but also patterns of life familiar across much of provincial Russia.
RUSSIAN ALBUM
Protests in Tula
Tula, January 2021
A photo series from the January 2021 protests in Tula. The images document peaceful demonstrators, police detentions, and the tense atmosphere of those days.
Notes from a Small Town
Tula Region, 2019
Lipki is a small town in the Tula region shaped by decades of coal mining. These photographs capture its quiet streets, industrial remnants, and the memory of an earlier era.
The Dangers of Diktatura
Tula Region, 2021
Diktatura is a small village in Russia’s Tula Region. These photographs document everyday life in a place where the past remains visible throughout the surrounding landscape.
Efremov: Life by the Krasivaya Mecha
Tula Region, 2019
Life in an old provincial town on the Krasivaya Mecha, where historic streets, Soviet legacies, agriculture, and modern everyday life coexist.