Tsimlyansk

This short documentary project about the small town of Tsimlyansk was completed in 2015 as part of a photojournalism course led by Sergey Maximishin. It explores the quiet, yet vibrant and colourful, cyclical rhythm of life in a small town in southern Russia, where the rivers Volga and Don were united in the 1950s, where everyday routines reveal a timeless reality behind the changing appearance of life.

My interest in this place was sparked by the opportunity to explore my family’s hometown and create a visual diary that tells the story of that place. The work spotlights scenes from the everyday lives of people living in a small provincial town with no major industries or busy economic activity. Among those pictured in this project are members of local ensembles, farmers, clergy and the congregation of the local Orthodox church, athletes and yachting enthusiasts, schools and hospitals, art centres and market traders, small factory workers, and ordinary town dwellers. This series depicts moments of work, rest, celebration, and ageing not as isolated events, but as parts of a continuous human cycle. Life in Tsimlyansk was no different from anywhere else, with generations overlapping, traditions persisting, and time seeming to be less a matter of progress than of repetition.

An old folk song, performed by the local song and dance ensemble Maydan, runs through the project as a unifying thread. Its recurring melody mirrors the structure of the town’s life itself, binding individual moments into a single, ongoing narrative about continuity, memory, and belonging.