66-III

My project concerns the subject of my grandfather's suicide in the late 1960s, in a taiga settlement of geologists. He worked as a radio operator at a weather station, and his family lived side by side with the native peoples of the Trans-Baikal Territory. The grandfather, as a child, arrived with his mother and brothers to the Russian Far East from the richly fertile region of the Altai Territory because of the many upheavals that the people of the country were experiencing. In a wide-ranging context, I examine the relationship of the Soviet individual escaping to the taiga from the omnipresent authorities. And I also look at the Soviet state as a colonizer of nature, which in the 60s, thanks to new technology, increased the scale of mining many times over.

This story began with an archival photograph of my grandfather, which I found in a family album. The photo was taken by a local newspaper correspondent in a taiga village where my grandfather lived with his family and worked as a radio operator. There was a lot of geological exploration of natural resources going on in those places at that time. I did not know my grandfather, as he was no longer alive when I was born. When I asked what happened, my parents said he was dead. It wasn't until many years later that I learned from my father that it was suicide. I was named after my grandfather. The lack of clear answers, perhaps due to an unwillingness to relive the trauma or self-censorship, still keeps me busy. Once, my father and I went to the village where my grandfather was buried 53 years later, to erect a monument. We found the grave and installed a memorial with a plaque. I took some pictures and notes at the time. After talking at length, my father once said that the whole story might have something to do with gold mining. Wanting to know more, I decided that I could get hold of this information, since being at the scene I kept hearing stories about gold mining in different contexts from the local people. Also, the photographs I took represent my personal reflection on the impact of the events of half a century ago on the future fate of my family and me in particular.Being now quite far from these places I came to the conclusion that in order to continue the project I must return to these places. There is a library and museum with the history of those places in the regional center of my grandfather's life.

My project is conceived as a collision of ideology, shards of memory, and personal reflection.