Exhibition of Photographs
The 1990s
was a time of extraordinary turmoil in Russia. From an independent
perspective, young European and American writers employed
by the Moscow Times reported on the death throes
of the Soviet system and Russia's struggles, after decades
of communism, to reinvent itself as a democracy with a market-based
economy. The foreign editors employed a small group of local
photojournalists to take pictures documenting the events
the reporters covered. As Russians, they were acutely aware
of the often painful changes that were daily occurring around
them. The photographs in this exhibition, taken for the Moscow
Times between 1992 and 2002, represent their own reflections
on Russia after communism.
Former U.S. President
Richard Nixon visits the Central Market in Moscow.
Mikhail Metzel, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in June 1992.
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Vladimir Zhirinovsky,
head of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party
of Russia, attends a rock club opening.
Mikhail Metzel, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in November 1992.
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Communists rally on October
Square in Moscow.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in 1992.
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Reindeer breeders gather
on the Taimyr Peninsula
of Northern Siberia.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in March 1993.
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A poster in the town
of Khatanga, Northern Siberia, displays a portrait
of Vladimir Lenin and proclaims:
" We will attain the victory of communist labor."
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in March 1993.
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On Smolensk Square in
Moscow, supporters of the
Supreme Soviet clash with police.
The police reported several officers wounded.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on October 2, 1993.
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With the
fall of communism, Russian photography reentered the international
arena. During the long Soviet era, photojournalism had served
the propaganda needs of the state. There was no support for
Russian photographers who sought to create art or depict
a reality at odds with the official party line. The display
of controversial work was officially banned, and its creators
often jailed. But in the early 1990s, photography reemerged
in Russia as a means of free self-expression and a tool for
representing a broader range of reality.
During the storming of
the White House, home of Russia's legislature, soldiers
from the elite "Alpha" unit are sent in to conduct
negotiations.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on October 4, 1993.
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Soldiers take up positions
on the Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment, Moscow.
Yevgeny Stetsko, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on October 4, 1993.
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As a brass band plays
in the background, a man displays personal possessions
for sale at an open-air market.
Yevgeny Stetsko, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on October 4, 1993.
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A woman prays in the
icon corner in the HIV-positive ward of the 2nd Hospital
for Infectious Diseases in Moscow.
Yevgeny Stetsko, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in 1993.
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A young boy plays on a tank at a memorial to the battle
for Moscow during World War II at Snegiri, a
town in the Moscow region.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in 1993.
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MOST-Group head Vladimir
Gusinsky, who controls MOST-Bank, also owns Today newspaper
and the NTV television station.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in November 1995.
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Veterans gather in Moscow
on Victory Day to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary
of the end of World War II.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on May 9, 1995.
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A woman demonstrates
support for Sergei Mavrodi, head of the MMM financial
pyramid scheme in which millions of Russians lost billions
of rubles. When Mavrodi was arrested, some investors
blamed the government for their losses and defended
Mavrodi.
Yevgeny Stetsko, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in summer 1994.
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The accused awaiting
trial in the Butyrskaya prison in Moscow. Designed
to hold just one-half the number of inmates it actually
houses, the prison was last renovated in 1878.
Mikhail Metzel, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in June 1995.
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A man wounded in the
first Chechen war adjusts to a prosthesis.
Yevgeny Stetsko, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in December 1995.
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A sailor celebrates Navy
Day in Gorky Park, Moscow.
Mikhail Metzel, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken August 1994.
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Workers assemble a new
statue of World War II hero Marshal Georgy Zhukov on
Manezh Square in downtown Moscow. The statue is the
work of sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in 1995.
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Today, many
Russian photographers who had no work during the Soviet era
are employed as successful photojournalists. While a number
of well-known news photographers work abroad for leading
Western media and picture agencies, most work for the news
magazines and daily papers inside Russia, such as the Moscow
Times, which proliferated in the immediate post-communist
era.
Members of a military
historical society attend a ceremony at the Church
of All Saints in Moscow to honor General Lavr Kornilov,
a leader of anti-Bolshevik forces during the 1917 Russian
revolution.
Mikhail Metzel, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in April 1995.
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Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin speaks to members of the State Duma, Russia's
legislature.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in April 1996.
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Excavations at Manezh
Square in downtown Moscow, in preparation for construction
of a new underground shopping mall, unearth a cemetery
dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in March 1996.
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As is customary, communist
and Christian symbols are seen side by side at an opposition
rally.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in March 1996.
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A family from Tajikistan,
a former Soviet republic in Islamic Central Asia, negotiates
the streets of Moscow.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in March 1996.
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Russian Pentecostalists
pray at a meeting at a Moscow stadium during the Festival
of World Happiness.
Yevgeny Stetsko, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in October 1997.
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In contrast
to Western news photography, Russian photojournalism often
appears to seek a more artistic form. Indeed, a compositional
or emotional drama propels many of the images in this exhibition
beyond the ordinary limits of documentary news photography.
But to non-Russian eyes, the photojournalists' innate ability
to grasp the essential significance and poetic import of
their subjects stands out the most. Since each has personally
experienced the dramatic upheavals that so convulsed Russia
in the 1990s, they are acutely attuned to the often shocking
impact of societal changes and are thus able to document
their effects with an insight denied to out-siders--an insight
that can be both passionate, poetic, ironic, sad, and humorous.
The ice breaks on the
Moscow River, with the newly-rebuilt Cathedral of Christ
the Savior in the background.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in March 1998.
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U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright meets Russian Orthodox Patriarch
Alexy II at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in February 1997.
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A view of the town of
Verkhoturye reborn as a center of Orthodox Christianity,
in Russia's Ural Mountain region.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in August 1997.
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The Tetris Wax Museum
in Moscow displays busts of political leaders from
the past.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in May 1997.
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Lyubov Tumayeva from Nizhny Novgorod tells of her son
Sergei, who died in Chechnya.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in August 1997.
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President Boris Yeltsin
pays his respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,
Moscow.
Evgeny Stetsko, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on May 9, 1999.
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The Tax Police hold a
news conference in Moscow.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in 1997.
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A monk approaches a Buddhist
temple in Buryatia, Eastern Siberia.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in November 1998.
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Members celebrate eighty
years of the Komsomol, the Communist youth organization,
on Poklonnaya Hill, Moscow.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in October 1998.
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A man catches a few winks
on the Moscow River embankment.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in 1996.
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A cadet collapses from
heat and nerves during an induction ceremony of the
Suvorov Military Academy outside the Cathedral of Christ
the Savior in Moscow.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in August 1999.
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Young soldiers enjoy
Paratroopers Day on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in August 2001.
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The Moscow
Times' photographers covered not only the major news
stories of the 1990s--the armed conflict between the Russian
Parliament and President Boris Yeltsin in October 1993;
the momentous 1996 presidential election campaign won by
Boris Yeltsin; Russia's financial collapse in 1998; the
terrorist bombings in Moscow in September 1999 and 2000;
and the election of President Vladimir Putin in 2000--but
also many minor and contradictory dramas and achievements
as well. The photographs in this exhibition illustrate
the widespread revival of religion; the unprecedented number
of political and protest demonstrations; nostalgia for
both the communist and tsarist pasts; the presence of AIDS;
the continued celebration of military anniversaries; the
effects of the wars in Chechnya; the aftermath of the financial
pyramid scheme that ruined millions of Russians; and the
rise of both business oligarchs and ultranationalist politicians.
But the photographs also catch special, timeless moments
in the life of Russia: ice fishing in winter; the spring
breakup of the frozen Moscow River; young soldiers celebrating
on leave; and the discovery of a long-forgotten graveyard
during construction of a new downtown shopping plaza. Together,
the images help tell the story of a nation undergoing radical
transformation on many levels.
A terrorist explosion
rips apart a nine-story apartment building, killing
ninety-four Muscovites.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on September 9, 1999.
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Archpriest Fyodor Sokolov
performs the Orthodox rite called "going down to the
Jordan" by dipping a young member of his congregation
into a hole in the ice on the Moscow Canal. Sokolov
had earlier blessed the water as part of the celebration
of Epiphany.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in January 2000.
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Moscow prepares for the
200th anniversary celebration of Russian
poet Alexander Pushkin's birth in 1799.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in May 1999.
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Firemen exhausted from
rescue work rest after the explosion on Pushkin Square
in Moscow.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on September 8, 2000.
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A View of Red Square
in Moscow.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in 1994.
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Russian Orthodox Patriarch
Alexy II comforts children of sailors who perished
in the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in August 2000.
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Efforts by Russian and
German volunteers ensure that the remains of fallen
German soldiers in Russia's Kaliningrad province on
the Baltic Sea will be reburied in a military cemetery.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in September 2000.
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Young admirers of Lavrenty
Beria, director of the Soviet secret police who was
instrumental in carrying out the purges under Joseph
Stalin, display communist symbols in Volgograd.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in June 2000.
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A man fishes through
the ice in Kostroma, northeast of Moscow, against the
backdrop of the historic Ipatiev monastery.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken spring in 2000.
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Muscovites celebrate
spring with balloons on Manezh Square.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in April 2002.
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Skinheads protest the
importation of American chicken in front of the McDonald's
restaurant on Pushkin Square in Moscow.
Vladimir Filonov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken in April 2002.
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Veterans and their families
gather to celebrate Victory Day in Moscow in front
of the Bolshoy Theater.
Igor Tabakov, photographer.
Copyprint, original taken on May 9, 2002.
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