Holy Rus

Holy Rus is a photography book by Vladislav Semenov. The book contains 240 pictures taken with a film camera during trips to Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine. Some 30 years after the downfall of communism, the photographer reveals the bittersweet side of a post-Soviet world riddled with paradoxes: oscillating between hypermodernity and folk traditions, disproportionate wealth and extreme poverty, kitsch and classicism, religiosity and consumerism. With derision but not without tenderness, the photographer highlights the incoherencies and the sometimes tragicomic absurdity of everyday situations encountered by the ordinary people, whether they be revelers, old folks, tourists, fervent patriots or the homeless. Initially begun as a travel log, the series evolves into a personal diary, summarizing the artist's both mental and physical trip through his homeland, as if he was trying to reconnect the strands of his origins.