Background information
"The photo series 'Zhili Byli' (in German: Es war einmal) combines portraits with images of living situations in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk. For eight months of the year, the city in northwestern Russia experiences freezing temperatures that drop to 40 degrees below zero. These climatic conditions create a contrast between inside and outside. In prefabricated buildings and old wooden houses, residents create a space in which they spend most of the year. Cozy, almost cave-like - in contrast to the outside world, which seems largely abandoned." (© André LÜTZEN)
Content
"'Arkhangelsk / Russia / still 225 km to the Arctic Circle', that's how André LÜTZEN starts his book 'Zhili Byli' and that's exactly what it's about. The German photographer traveled far into the north of Russia and spent his time in a place that is little known and that you will hardly find in travel guides.
There it is cold and wet, the river frozen, the streets gray and at night a lonely billboard shines - without advertising. People live in prefabricated buildings or simple wooden houses, the paint on the staircases is peeling.
Nevertheless, people live here - the city has 350,000 inhabitants - and have settled into their houses and apartments, prepared for the long cold months. Bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms. Patterned wallpaper, desk, television, piano, pictures on the wall, food on the table. The residents of Arkhangelsk invited the photographer to their homes and he took pictures that simply show how they live.
Living space, inside and outside, and how people arrange themselves in it. Somewhere in Russia. That's what this beautiful book shows, and that's what makes it so exciting - precisely because it's so unspectacular.
In the essay 'Train Journey from Nowhere to Nowhere,' also included in the book, Leonid A. Klimov tells of his mixed feelings about his remote cold homeland, which remains his home even though he hasn't lived there for a long time. Mostly because of the people." (© Hannes Wanderer, 2014)
About the German photographer, André LÜTZEN
Photo books by André LÜTZEN
- Format
- HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 24 x 22 x 1 cm., 88 pp., 43 color ills., bilingual texts: German / English