Hidden in Siberia

When I returned to my native city of Tomsk after twelve-year separation I was full of energy and new positive emotions. At that time, seven years ago, I had other options for finding a new life. I could have gone to other cities and countries, but nevertheless I chose Tomsk - maybe because of some special spiritual connection with this Siberian city or due to a certain magical atmosphere in the city itself. After my regular trips, I always come back here with great pleasure. I take special delight in walking with the camera along these quiet streets. A great bonus to a street photographer is that Tomsk is a place of contrasts and these contrasts always surprise me a lot. Here, on one street you can meet a marginal alcoholic beggar, an elegantly dressed professor of one of the universities and a representative of one of the youth subcultures with acid hair color. Here you can shoot on historic streets consisting of beautiful restored stone mansions but turning just a few dozens of meters, you get into another world - the world that excited me and charmed a photographer in me. This realm seems to have abandoned its past, but not yet conscious of what awaits it in near future. This is a domain of fanciful and vulnerable lines that can arouse many different emotions, ranging from most pleasant ones to absolute disgust. Yet it is a sincere world that is Tomsk as well. Here, as nowhere else you feel the pulse of a changing city, the disappearing reality of wooden Tomsk. The unique aesthetics and an incredible number of subjects and moments that Tomsk is so rich in finally brings me to one eternal theme, the theme of the relationship between City and Human being, their interpenetration and interdependence, which unite this space into entire symphony of life.