Udmurtya

Udmurtya is the region with one of the highest rates of suicides amongst males in Russia.
Mostly udmurts hang themselves in the woods. There are several reasons for that. One of them is sheltered in the cultural traditions of the nation. Udmurts are shamanists, inseparability connected to the nature, which is
the essential part of their religion and rituals.
I was interested in concentrating to the portraits of widows, their stories and the images of the nature – probable places of self-murders, but not always. Through it the spectator can imagine how the nature influence on udmurts.
I inclined to consider suicide as a manifestation of these powerful chthonic presence of archaic energy, which still lives in the remote Udmurtia.
I wanted to capture natural failure, a fatal failure, the hole in which other forces live, pulling the young and full of strength men inside.