Everything about Eastern Europe, Russia and Eurasia fascinates me — Rasputin, our mutual Levis obsession, religious icons, Communist propaganda, The Master and Margarita, a dim worldview, Futurism, vodka…lots to love, no? However, all of these interests are trumped by the primitive vibrancy of extremely rural Russia (seriously, look at those colors — reminds me of Latin America). Photographer Olya Ivanova ventures to villages across Eastern Europe to photograph dwindling societies that may soon die out in the face of a homogenized, Western world. I’m held by their potent gaze, the painted-over decay and random ephemera taped to the walls, as well as the towering stand of trees — the trees! Argh, to be there now…
The old lady is definitely my favorite, because she reminds me of my grandmother. I’m also fond of the man with the crooked nose and the cat on his shoulders. Adorable.
[Thanks to Dream Cats for turning me on to Olya's work! Check out her Flickr.]
These are all gorgeous!
they just leave me speechless. equally enamoured.
Stunning–thank you for sharing!
I have an internet friend whom I’ve known for years. He’s Russian, has never left Russia (he grew up in the USSR era but never even ventured to another non-Russian republic), but writes in fluent English and French, and is one of the best photographers I’ve ever seen I’m going to do a feature on him in my blog soon and I’ll send it to you when I do. He does amazing images of the street dogs and cats of Moscow, as well as many rural images similar to these (in theme) when he visits his family’s dacha.
These images are crazy gorgeous. Thanks for introducing her work to me.
Good God! I can feel the stillness of the landscape when I look at these. Beautiful portrait work as well. Wow.
Indeed it looks like South America, watching the pic of the sheep, reminds me a beautiful island of Chiloé (south of Chile) I’d been there a so many times and I just love everything there: the people, the scenes so magical and peaceful, the food of course… Maybe we should move there!! (I’ll try to convince my husband…jeje…that’s a good one!)
Nice blog!
Amazing images, fascinating sceneries. I too love rural Russia but I’m not sure about the Latin American comparison though. These colors have mostly pastel shades, whereas in most Latin American landscapes, colors are vibrant – even when beige…
Thanks for sharing.
[...] Russian love! Believe it or not, these sumptuous, color soaked images were taken a century ago, from 1909 to [...]
I always had no interest in Russia, for some reason. This changed my mind.
Thanks for sharing!
I loooooove these photos..especially the old woman in the first photo and the man with the cat on his head..ah..these are lovely..very..ah! LOVE