OR EDU

Anatoly Kabisov lives alone in a destroyed area which used to belong to the georgian enclave in South Ossetia. Before the war 2008, this territory was inhabited by 7 thousands of georgian citizens. The Ossetians hated this encave, because it was placed right on the road which connected South and North Ossetia. During the war, all georgians had gone away, leaving hundreds of houses which were immediately ruined and robbed by the ossetians, in order not to give the former residents the opportunuty to come back.
Kabisov was one of the few ossetian inhabitants of his territory. Being half-georgian half-ossetian, he speaks ossetian language and conciders himself ossetian. 10 years ago he went to the North Ossetia because of the permanent pursuit of the georgians. When he came back after the war, he discovered that his house had been demolished by his own people, and it was not included into the reconstruction lists.
Now Kabisov lives here alone, without electricity, and tries to cultivate the land by himself. He doesnt expect any assistance - neither from Russia, which only gives money to reconstruct buildings which suffered from georgian agression, nor from Western countries, because cultivation of the georgian land violates the international law.

POVERTY TRAPS - eхploring poverty in Russia

Oleg Tebazov lives with his wife and two children in an 11-meter room of a family dormitory, that he received from the government when he left orphanage. He owes a lot of money to “Russian standart” bank. As soon as Oleg finds a job, the bank will find him. That’s why Oleg doesn’t work. That’s why he doesn’t pay his debts. His wife Tanya gets only 4000 rubles a month working as a cleaning lady. Their two-year old diabetic son needs special food, but Tanya can‘t afford it. Their neighbours think she is a bad mother and that it would be better for the children to live in an orphanage. The neighbors, irritated by the burden of helping this family to buy essential foodstuffs, are considering to report them to the authorities.. Little Dima can repeat the fate of his father.

Such "poverty traps", as they are known in the West, are ubiquitous across modern Russia and present an ever-increasing source of future social instability. They have features unique to post-soviet Russia that have hardly been described and pictured even in the russian-language media.

During my journalistic work in different regions of Russia I repeatedly came across people whose efforts to get out of poverty were discouraged by the the legal and social framework of their communities - any efforts made by the individual to escape poverty cause new financial and material loss. In my photographic project I would like to explore the variety of such situations, picturing different types of poverty traps. In each case I would like to show everyday life of a family, a person or a community whose life is organized by a certain trap. Here are some examples:

- Roof over one’s head. This unusual trap is typical for Russia. In some regions there are almost no jobs - for example, in small one-factory towns where the factory doesn’t work since 1990s. But people keep living there, because some time ago they were able to get a house on an apartment in this place. Even such a good thing as owning real estate can turn into a “Trap”

- Depts. This trap is extremely widespread in Russia, where the level of the financial education is very low. Hoping to improve their lives, hoping to be in tune with socially accepted standards of wealth, many poor people make financial commitments which come out to be very difficult for them - so they have to pay their debts for many years, or they hide from the banks, which causes even more difficulties.

- Odd jobs, short-time illegal or half legal activites. If you live in a region where you can get just 100 euros per month working officially, sometimes you start to work illegally, being able to get the same amount of money in just a couple of days. This choice is very risky - people tend to lose any social guaranties, turning into gastarbeiters in their own country. Such strategy is hardly successful: this occupation mostly depends on season, and quick money are often quickly spent.

-Bankrupcy. I would like to show people who tried to run their own business but didn’t succeed. May be it’s a way to understand why so few people in Russia resolve to run individual enterprises.

- Labour migration inside Russia. Not all people are so passive - some leave depressive regions and move to more developed cities, where they face discrimination - local community doesn’t support newcomers.

- The industry of cheap trash. One of forced strategies of poor people is to buy the cheapest - clothes, shoes, house equipment. But cheapest things do not last long, which causes new expenses - for repair or for buying new stuff.

- Health. Poor people do not have time and money for their health - so they use last-minute opportunities. They often call emergency - because it is free. They go to some weird shamans, paranormalists, psysicians - and donate them a lot of money - because it gives them hope for instant miraculous healing. It’s also a kind of trap.

Currently I am working on the “Debts” part of this project, spending a lot of time with the representatives of a collecting agency and with the debtors. I think that raising public awareness of russian poverty traps is an urgent task. Capturing the attention of the society can increase the chance that such problems will be eventually addressed, before their potential to contribiute to the rise of violence and nationalism is fully realised.

In four days we looked at 22 schools in four mountain districts. That’s very many. As a result, almost all the schools merged together in my mind in one cold room with blue and white walls, decorated with numerous portraits of Kadyrov the younger and his aphorisms. Who hangs up all of these? “Just try not hanging them up!” the director answers. Among these schools there were also model-demonstration schools, which had been repaired and had children’s playgrounds, and altogether bleak schools where there’s barely a glimmer of life.

he foreign language in almost all schools is Arabic. The teacher of Arabic, as a rule, holds elective classes on the Quran and lessons in ethics, where he tells the children about Chechen traditions. In one of the schools of the Vedenskii district the imam built the stove with his own hands.

By the way, the situation in different communities is not the same, much depends on the condition of the village and people’s readiness to build a new life here. For example, in the village of Ushkaloi the school is accommodated, with some difficulty, in the teacher’s small house, but in a neighbouring community, just a couple of kilometres from here, there’s an enormous building equipped with a dozen computers — but there’s nobody to study there: almost all the residents with children moved away to the lowlands.

The Nenets people are an indigenous people in Russia.
Traditionnaly they lead nomadic way of life, hunting and reindeer herding, travelling great distances over the Kanin peninsula.

After the Russian Revolution, their culture suffered due to Soviet collectivisation policy. The government of the Soviet Union tried to force the nomad Nenets to settle down, and most of them became assimilated. They were forced to settle on permanent farms and their children were educated in state boarding schools, which resulted in erosion of their cultural identity.

Environmental damage due to the industrialisation of their land and overgrazing of the tundra migration routes in some regions have further endangered their way of life.

Hello, Bjarke!
Very interesting: I like your structuralist approach to visual things, it makes one forget about the context and see the story “from the outside”.

What I think about poverty roles:

“Heroes”, of course, must be poor people. They will struggle, they will have to overcome many difficulties, mostly loosing, but sometimes winning. Perhaps I would like Tanya from Cherepovets to be my protagonist. She works as cleaning woman in a school for 4000 rubles (about 130 dollar) a month. She has two children and an unemployed husband to support. They live altogether in a 11-meter room in a family dormitory. Tanya feels very sorry because she cannot give her children as much as her neighbors.

The Prince or the princess will be children, who are first to save. One of Tanya’s kids, Dima, has diabetes, his brother Tolik cannot find understanding among his age mates. Generally it’s the children who give government and social institutes information about families who need assistance – through schools, kindergartens and polyclinics.

“Helpers” could have been ambulance workers – but they are from another story and another city. I still think about including them into poverty story, because most of their clients are very poor. But rather as side characters. Tanya’s helpers in Cherepovets are Beautiful social girls from “Voskhozhdenie” (“Ascension”), a very good and professional NGO that helps so-called “problem families” to get out using their own potential. Beautiful social girls, mostly having psychological education, visit families at home, try to understand, what problem they have and how can they overcome it themselves. The “Ascension” program almost doesn’t give money to people, but it can help them to use benefits the government gives – they explain, how to get papers, how to put the child into a kindergarten and so on. So they are also a kind of “Dispatchers”, but not “Donors”.

I would like the Government to play the role of “Donor” in this story. It doesn’t give much to my heroes – in Russia you cannot really live on welfare – but still, if you can use its benefits rationally, you can live little bit better. The problem is that Government plays a punitive role as well: for example, so-called “social defence” service frequently takes children from parents and brings them to orphanages. They expect from families to fix their lives while children are away from them – but usually nobody does. So there is no surprise, that poor people have fear of government: my Beautiful social girls often help them to overcome this fear.

So in this quest the Government is a dreadful Dragon who watches over treasure. The hero’s challenge is to outwit the Dragon, to get the treasure and to go further. One of the dangers is to “fell asleep” right after that – (Tanya says: “I am looking to Dima’s pension” – that means, she is about to relax after she gets it)

“False hero” can be the “All-right society” that doesn’t feel any compassion to my heroes. Its position is “we all are poor” (which is, partially, true), but “they” (my heros, Tanya), “don’t know how to live” (which means, they live in the day, don’t count their expenses, they buy chocolate for children instead of bread) – that’s why they are not worthy of any aid.
Tanya’s neighbors help her and her children with some food, but at the same time they permanently criticize her, which prevents her of being confident and strong.

Now the most interesting question: Who will be the bad guy? To be honest, I don’t know. If I knew the answer, perhaps the issue wouldn’t be so interesting for me. Of course, the evident enemy of the underclass is alcohol, but I am sure the poverty problem is deeper.

I could construct the film as a crime story – “looking for the Bad Guy”. Than everything must be different:
The heroes must be Beautiful social girls, and the princes – their poor clients. During the development of the story we could have different versions of “Who is the Bad Guy?”: Employers? Government? Social defense service? Neighbors? Alcohol? Granddad Lenin? It can be also the City with its factories, desperate slums, gray yards and dormitories. Finally we could suspect the Princess herself to be her own enemy – but this answer cannot be definitive, too.

When I got to know Tanya she had just started to work with beautiful social girls. Unfortunately I have no opportunity to observe Tanya’s life all the time, but I will go to Cherepovets again soon – so I will be able to see how the situation will develop. At the same time I will be able to spend more time with beautiful social girls and with the official “dragons” – perhaps the roles will be determined better.

Sorry for long and chaotic explanation
What do you think?
All the best
Julia

Hello, Bjarke!
Very interesting: I like your structuralist approach to visual things, it makes one forget about the context and see the story “from the outside”.

What I think about poverty roles:

“Heroes”, of course, must be poor people. They will struggle, they will have to overcome many difficulties, mostly loosing, but sometimes winning. Perhaps I would like Tanya from Cherepovets to be my protagonist. She works as cleaning woman in a school for 4000 rubles (about 130 dollar) a month. She has two children and an unemployed husband to support. They live altogether in a 11-meter room in a family dormitory. Tanya feels very sorry because she cannot give her children as much as her neighbors.

The Prince or the princess will be children, who are first to save. One of Tanya’s kids, Dima, has diabetes, his brother Tolik cannot find understanding among his age mates. Generally it’s the children who give government and social institutes information about families who need assistance – through schools, kindergartens and polyclinics.

“Helpers” could have been ambulance workers – but they are from another story and another city. I still think about including them into poverty story, because most of their clients are very poor. But rather as side characters. Tanya’s helpers in Cherepovets are Beautiful social girls from “Voskhozhdenie” (“Ascension”), a very good and professional NGO that helps so-called “problem families” to get out using their own potential. Beautiful social girls, mostly having psychological education, visit families at home, try to understand, what problem they have and how can they overcome it themselves. The “Ascension” program almost doesn’t give money to people, but it can help them to use benefits the government gives – they explain, how to get papers, how to put the child into a kindergarten and so on. So they are also a kind of “Dispatchers”, but not “Donors”.

I would like the Government to play the role of “Donor” in this story. It doesn’t give much to my heroes – in Russia you cannot really live on welfare – but still, if you can use its benefits rationally, you can live little bit better. The problem is that Government plays a punitive role as well: for example, so-called “social defence” service frequently takes children from parents and brings them to orphanages. They expect from families to fix their lives while children are away from them – but usually nobody does. So there is no surprise, that poor people have fear of government: my Beautiful social girls often help them to overcome this fear.

So in this quest the Government is a dreadful Dragon who watches over treasure. The hero’s challenge is to outwit the Dragon, to get the treasure and to go further. One of the dangers is to “fell asleep” right after that – (Tanya says: “I am looking to Dima’s pension” – that means, she is about to relax after she gets it)

“False hero” can be the “All-right society” that doesn’t feel any compassion to my heroes. Its position is “we all are poor” (which is, partially, true), but “they” (my heros, Tanya), “don’t know how to live” (which means, they live in the day, don’t count their expenses, they buy chocolate for children instead of bread) – that’s why they are not worthy of any aid.
Tanya’s neighbors help her and her children with some food, but at the same time they permanently criticize her, which prevents her of being confident and strong.

Now the most interesting question: Who will be the bad guy? To be honest, I don’t know. If I knew the answer, perhaps the issue wouldn’t be so interesting for me. Of course, the evident enemy of the underclass is alcohol, but I am sure the poverty problem is deeper.

I could construct the film as a crime story – “looking for the Bad Guy”. Than everything must be different:
The heroes must be Beautiful social girls, and the princes – their poor clients. During the development of the story we could have different versions of “Who is the Bad Guy?”: Employers? Government? Social defense service? Neighbors? Alcohol? Granddad Lenin? It can be also the City with its factories, desperate slums, gray yards and dormitories. Finally we could suspect the Princess herself to be her own enemy – but this answer cannot be definitive, too.

When I got to know Tanya she had just started to work with beautiful social girls. Unfortunately I have no opportunity to observe Tanya’s life all the time, but I will go to Cherepovets again soon – so I will be able to see how the situation will develop. At the same time I will be able to spend more time with beautiful social girls and with the official “dragons” – perhaps the roles will be determined better.

Sorry for long and chaotic explanation
What do you think?
All the best
Julia