Good Old Days is a series of pictures I took before russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Born a few years before the collapse of the Soviet Union I was growing up in a society with strong post soviet nostalgia for elderly people and the young generation which didn’t know any better and was politically supervised by the new postcolonial elites raised on the debris of the Soviet empire.
In 2010 and until 2013 I’ve had several trips to russia, curious for photographic knowledge built upon soviet documentary style. After russia launched a war against Georgia and occupied its territory in 2008, my visits were filled with paranoia and uncertainties about russia’s worshiping of the days of its imperial past.
Empathy is the essence of human nature in my opinion. Despite all russian propaganda efforts to shrink the man into a tiny nuance like a bolt in a big huge emotionless machine deep inside Ukrainian culture, there’s a deep respect for basic human rights. Freedom is the most important of them.
One cherishes freedom above all when there’s a dire threat not only to one’s freedom but to bear existence at all. How would one know that one is living the Good Old Days before they are gone?
