Moscow Diary

I first arrived in Moscow in the winter of 2003. I stayed in the city for two weeks; later in the summer of 2004, I spent two months more. My idea was to photograph daily life, and people of the new generation in the streets. After this trip, I decided to return to Moscow to see more street life and city people. After all those years under a communist regime and the biggest ideological war against the capitalist world; I found a tired nation on the streets of the capital city. A change was still a big wave in the culture and people. The middle-aged generation is trying to keep what they saved after perestroika. Elders just left with their idea of communism, the nostalgia of the glory days. The monthly pension of a retired worker is around ten to fifteen dollars. Young people try to get a job in some international companies. The most Popular University Departments are political sciences, economy, and mathematics. Recently foreign languages such as Chinese took importance, because of the foreign policy of Russia. A big city witnesses many other aspects of social injustice every day. The number of unemployed young people has risen over the last ten years. Banks are giving small amounts of credit to new investors to build a whole new company. But money has to be paid back in a year. So none of the small investors can take that risk for a year. That’s one of the reasons that foreign investment is needed. However, all those matters look chaotic there is still something to hold on to, the intellectual spirit of communism.

Moscow Diary became a book designed on two sides, one side contains all selected images as a diary for a reader to browse; the other side contains all images shot during the period -as digital contact sheets- designed as a diary written for self.