Nostalgic for a country I’ll never know, I wanted to pay tribute to the collective memory of those around me, our parents and grandparents who grew up in the USSR, my uprooted generation who grew up in France in an atmosphere that was sometimes communal and sometimes far removed from its roots.
Through films, music, photos and family stories, sometimes through language, we clung on as best we could to a culture that is gradually disappearing.
This culture of mutual aid, of sharing, of ‘we had nothing but we gave everything’, of literature, of cinema, of life. But it was also a time of authoritarianism and propaganda, with a culture that was gagged and monitored.
Darya is Ukrainian and Sasha is Russian. Both of them had the incredible courage to accept this project. I wanted to pay tribute to the folklore of each of them by having them wear the traditional crowns of their nationality. Darya wears a Ukrainian floral crown (vinok) and Sasha a rigid Russian headdress (kokochnik).
The set for the shoot was created using second-hand wallpaper and furniture, family heirlooms (my great-grandfather’s chess set, the family samovar, crowns made by my mother, my grandmother’s crockery, books of soviet poets etc.) and food bought from the Eastern European shop Kalina (Meudon).
The current polarisation of the world inexorably leads to the need to question and distinguish fantasy from reality.
That’s why I wanted to re-create an unreal Soviet world, somewhere between beauty and absurdity, made up of idealisations, with a touch of self-mockery.
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Photographer & Director: Katia Karenine @katia.karenine
DOP: Antoine Szlafmyc @antoineszlafmyc
Steadycamer: Paul-Andre Robin @paul.andre.robin
Mua: Carla MR @muacarlamr
Styling: Anja Maticic @anjam_design & Chloé Vasta @chloe__vst
Set Designers: Antoine Szlafmyc & Katia Karenine
Models : Darya @daryamalevytch & Sasha @sasha__rudakova at
Studio : @ryzom.studio
