Gunia. B-Side photoshoot.
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The ”Kremenchuk” combat boat prevents the Russians from blocking Ukrainian ports.
There are currently two "Gurza" combat boats in Ukraine: "Lubny" and "Kremenchuk". Their main task is to protect the passage of ships into the Sea of Azov, to prevent the attacks of Russian military boats.
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Bandera, rise up!
The activists marched to the Ukrainian Police Headquarters.
Read MorePisky
Abandoned buildings in the town of Pisky. Before the war it had around 2160 inhabitants. The Special Monitoring Mission of the OSCE reported in August 2015 that six permanent residents remained in the town.
Donetsk Institute of Agro-Industrial Production of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine was located here. It was an institution providing scholar knowledge for agricultural production of the region. It had 7 departments, which consisted of 15 labs. Before the war 50 research fellows used to work here, and among them were 13 PhD’s.
Donetsk region. Ukraine. 2015
Ivan Marchuk, the Ukrainian artist was included in the British rankings "One hundred geniuses of modernity", which was formed by the newspaper @telegraph. The International Academy of Contemporary Art in Rome took Ivan Marchuk to the Golden Guild and elected an honorary member of the Academic Council of the Academy (51 artists from around the world are included into the Golden Guild). #ukraine #art#IvanMarchuk #portrait
Marchuk Ivan
Rivne region. Ukraine.
May 2015
In December 2016, in the abandoned and ruined town of Pisky (Donetsk Region, Ukraine), I found a photo lab in the building of Donetsk Agrarian Institute.
Due to the constant shelling, all windows were broken for a long period of time. In this laboratory, I found two unused reels of expired 120mm Film, which was produced 30 years ago. Over the past three years, the building experienced a severe frost, hot summer air, autumnal moisture, snow, rain etc. I took the reels, but I doubted they will be useable. Two months later, in the Carpathian Mountains, I decided to give it a try. I loaded the old Zeiss Ikon photo camera with the cassette, I found 1,500 km away in the East. The result astonished me: I got several stylish, old-fashioned images when I developed the Film.
When I was shooting Mountains in western Ukraine on the Film from the East, I was not thinking about such a symbolism. 98 years ago, one year after the declaration of independence from Russia: the western and the eastern parts of Ukraine were united for the first time after centuries of the division of Ukrainian lands and its people between the Golden Horde, Poland, Lithuania, later Russia, Ottoman, Austria, and Hungary. This state lasted just a few months, but it was important for understanding Ukraine as a holistic nation and the country, and this understanding laid the foundation of the struggle for independence of the united country.
Dzembronya, Ukraine.
January 2017
This man doesn't open dimensions, he creates them. Wonderful evening with live music by composer Liubomyr Melnyk.
The Continuous piano
"02 18"
For 35 years, every hour the surrounding area of a central square was filled with a melody of the song "How can I not to love you, my Kyiv!" by Ukrainian composer Igor Shamo. This song knows by heart all kyivers as the unofficial anthem of the capital. The song is full of tenderness and love for the city. It is easy and waltzing, very in the nature of Kyiv. The music sounded from integrated speakers in the tower of the building at the central square of Kyiv.
During "The Revolution of Dignity", The Trade Union House was used as the spontaneous hospital for protesters. All who got in real hospitals with wounds and / or if their clothes smelled of smoke, they were indiscriminately arrested. Thus, some people missed and still unknown what happened to them.
On the night of February 18 - 19, the building where was several dozens of people (doctors, "self-defend guardians", wounded and killed people), was burned by Security Service Special Forces "Alpha" (according to the General prosecution of Ukraine). A number of people who died in fire vary between 2 and 50. This event was obtained with many legends and it is difficult to recognize the truth. Doctors claim that all of the wounded were evacuated to another "field" hospital, which is located 500 meters from The Independence Square (Maidan), in the Cathedral of St. Michael. The fire in the building managed to extinguish at 6:55 am on 20 February.
As in many languages of the world, the same word could have several meanings. The last verse of the song can be interpreted as: "The fires blossom above the Dnipro like a necklace". On that night, many have quoted this line, because the burning square which is located on a hill, was visible from all over the city.
Like many of fellows, I realized that since that day we live in another country and we passed the point of no return. Such a large number of deaths around I've never seen before. And the most important thing that people did not give up to force, which significantly exceeded our capacity. And it was all for the sake of creation and of human dignity.
Today, two years later, in spite of the corruption, war, crisis, the general disappointment, we are still on the way to a point in which we believed that winter. Desert, within which we are building our dream - is ruthless, but nothing motivates better than the result of our own work: when you see that you are stronger than the hundreds of years of life in a country where freedom was stolen. And that gives us a faith. The faith in ourselves, in our strength and our future. Everything will be fine, we just started.
Kyiv, Ukraine
July 2016
02 18
Nina has been paralyzed after two strokes she had had. It happened 2 years before the war started. Everything she knows now about the war in Donbas is only what she could hear. She knows this war only by her ear. Local volunteers gathered all the troubled elderly people, such as Nina, under one roof in an abandoned school in Stanitsa Luhanska.
Stanitsa Luhanska. Luhansk region. Ukraine. 2015