OR EDU

Verkhneuralsk is a small town in the South Urals, one of the oldest, it used to have several factories, now only two plants are working.
During the civilian war Verkhneurals was a place of red and white сossacks troops fights, in thirties it became famous as a place of repressions victims burial. After WWII Verkhneuralsk was one of the small cities apart of growing Chelyabinsk. Small towns are rapidly deurbanizing in Russia. When a salary or a pension is too small to feed a family, most of people are working in their gardens to cultivate fruits and vegetables. And the feeling of a city is disappearing.
Time dulls the memory, as one of the heroes of my story told me: “You know, as it is with us, Russians, one-two generations and nobody remembers anything...”. Some people remember something of their own families, though it’s hard - the civilian war erased a lot, some just remember their own life. I began this project because I’m interested to survey memory connection - local story that lives or will live in someone’s mind or family album picture or in some left objects.

Ongoing project

Grozny, the capital of war-torn Chechnya, is a melting pot for changing Сaucasus society that is trying to overcome a post-trauma shock of two recent wars and find its own way of life in between traditional Сhechen values, Muslim traditions, and globalization, to cope with rapidly changing role of women, increasing contrast between rich and poor and political games.

Our project Grozny, Nine Cities is inspired by a Thornton Wilder book, Theophilus North, and centers on the idea of nine cities being hidden in one, which gives us a concept to explore specific aspects of the aftermath of two Chechen wars considering them as ”cities” hidden within Grozny.