It Was Forever, Until It Ended

For safety reasons, some photographs are not shown at this time.Ongoing project, 2022–present.

On February 24, 2022, my country launched a full-scale war against Ukraine. This completely changed my life.

This project consists of self-portraits taken during the war as a reaction to what was happening: propaganda, new laws that banned even the word «war, ” isolation caused by sanctions and international condemnation, repression, and forced emigration.

What began as a form of protest gradually turned into a way of documenting reality.

It all started intuitively. I took my first self-portraits on my birthday, February 22, 2022. On that day the war had not yet begun in fact, but it had already begun legally. I was shooting on my phone because I did not realize and did not believe that this would turn into a full-scale armed war. I was wrong.

These photographs led to persecution by the state, and eventually I was forced to leave the country before imprisonment became only a matter of time. After that, the portraits taken in Russia were replaced by the scenery of Germany, a country that felt foreign to me.

Since childhood, my mother tried to protect me and instilled certain beliefs: «you must stay silent and remain invisible.» These attitudes were widespread among citizens of the USSR, as fear of repression was part of the everyday experience of several generations. It was shaped not by abstract ideology, but by real history: arrests, denunciations, labor camps, loss of rights, and the impossibility of defending oneself. These beliefs felt alien to me. I grew up during the 1990s and early 2000s, often described as the freest period in Russia’s recent history. After 2022, I clearly saw how cyclical our history is, a history that seems to leave no space for hope for democratic change.

And yet continuing this project gives me hope and meaning. I believe in the inevitability of the political evolution of authoritarian regimes. I believe that Russia will come to democracy. I believe in my home and in my return.

This path is not yet complete. When it will end, or whether it will end at all, is unknown. Russia’s history appears to move in circles, but is that truly the case? I will be able to take the final photograph only when I return home. Until that moment, this place will remain empty.