MelancholiaI moved in St.Petersburg in winter of 2008 to live with my husband in his home-city. It was my first time moving, a new place, one very different from Moscow where I grew up. My first impression was — silence. It seemed as if everything existed in a some sort of vacuum. People in the subway lowered their eyes, the streets were cold and calm. I could feel everything as if slowing down continuously. I spent a lot of time alone as I hadn’t found a job yet, and I started to bring a camera with me, so to be better understand and relay that feeling. Excluding the main streets, the city appeared desolated. Old ruined houses with broken windows, decaying walls stripped of paint. People shunned me as soon as they saw the camera. No one wanted to make contact, no one looked in the eyes, no one returned a smile. Even the liveliest streets made me feel invisible. People were a reflection of the city — just as destructed, exhausted by silence. This series — is a record of what I had been seeing and feeling for the past three years; my reaction to the foreign city which rejects me to this day. Photography became an attempt to merge with the city, to conceive its true meaning and to acquaint it through photography.
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