Personal projects portfolio

244 km from Vladivostok. 2004

The series explores the artist’s return to his native Russia after the years of foreign travel, and the contrast between the memories of home and its reality in 2004.

In September 2004 I went back to Grodekovo. A typical Russian village of some three hundred inhabitants, Grodekovo is where I grew up. Situated 244 kilometers (151 miles) from Vladivostok, the village is a spot of a great natural beauty. However, this time I saw Grodekovo as I hadn't known it.

Grodekovo is a dying community. The Soviet collective farm, the village’s biggest employer went bankrupt in the 90s. People lost their jobs, and all the milk cows were slaughtered. Unemployment drove people to big cities like Vladivostok and the population consequently shrank. Some families, however, like my own, who are still living in Grodekovo are deeply rooted in those lands and will probably never leave, despite the economic situation.

The weed and the trees are taking over. What once was an infrastructure is now in ruins. The kindergarten and the public sauna exist no more. The school is about to be closed. The house of culture or ‘klub’, previously the pillar of village society, is now also deserted. In its hey-day it housed a library, a cinema, and a disco on weekends.

Migrants from the Ukraine and western parts of Russia founded Grodekovo following the exploration of Siberia and the settlement of Vladivostok in 1860. In a strange way Vladivostok put Grodekovo on the map, but ironically it seems like it might take it off again some 145 years later, relocating it into the realm of one's personal memories.