Introduction
I shot small town in the north part of Russia named Kich-Gorodok. It’s ordinary town with ordinary life, like hundreds of similar towns across the country. I went through villages around it which were almost depopulated and shot portraits of people living there as well as archive family pictures belonging to them. I tried to shoot in the same style as village professional photographers who were invited to make pictures of weddings, funerals, kids and feasts. I wanted to continue local tradition of posed portraits in the best dress with serious face. It helps me to connect all these people in their feeling of being Russian, in common atmosphere of irrationality, in such Russian combination of absurd and beauty, sadness and kitsch, family and history, life and death.