(via Beyond Sochi: Photos Of Russia By Russians)
The gap between how foreigners view Russia and how Russians view themselves is wide and as old as the country itself.
Russian photographer Valeriy Klamm felt that foreign photojournalists who came to work in his country arrive with the pictures they want to send back home already in their head: Bleak images of a cold and desolate place where autocrats lord over drunks.
"They already know how to take pictures of Russia, and that’s how they arrive," Klamm said. "It’s always a wild country that’s in some kind of difficult transition period."
Klamm, himself, had never photographed much outside of his home city of Novosibirsk, where nearly 2 million people live on the banks of the Ob River in the middle of Siberia.
But in 2000, he started to visit these small towns, camera in hand. And in 2009, Klamm started “Birthmarks on the Map,” a collective photo project and website that collects these images in one place. He began to ask his photographer friends, both foreign and local, to share images of simple life in the rural Russian villages and small towns that dot the vast expanse from Europe to the Pacific Ocean. More than 60 photographers, both award-winning professionals and hobbyists, have contributed.
Klamm wanted to fill his site with images of real Russia life, and the result is something closer to ethnography or anthropology than journalism. Klamm actually works with ethnographers who study these small communities to find untold stories.
"Life in the middle of nowhere has always been difficult," he said. "But I see dignity in the difficulties of these people on the outskirts of our geography. Their patience and simple wisdom gives strength and hope. And this stuff is always necessary to mankind."
