Poemas del río Wang: Motherland from below. Photos by Dmitry Markov

“They say I photograph «Russia without embellishment». But I find that quite superficial. I feel it more accurate that I photograph «the average Russia», because this is what Russia looks like beyond the great cities.”

“Comparing your Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/dcim.ru with other, colorful, bright pages, one has the feeling to see two different countries. Are the heroes of your photos the real Russia?”

“Look, my grandmother just died. She worked as a seamstress in a factory all her life. Under the bed where she spent her last two weeks, we found a bag of potatoes. She has been sewing such bags all her life. This is how my gradmother’s life passed. I don’t think that today’s young people dream of such a future, of working in a factory all their lives and dying with a bag of potatoes under their mattress.

But as I take pictures like these of these aunts, of my grandmother’s potato sack, I want to see meaning and beauty in it. These pictures show people’s lives, this is how people live. And not one or two or three persons, but the majority in Russia. This is what I want to show. The newsstands show pictures of stars. I want to show ordinary people, the beauty in ordinary, everyday life."

Dmitry Markov’s interview of 2018 emphasizes beauty in these images. We are primarily struck by the misery, wretchedness and hopelessness in them, with which this beauty and humanity tries to maintain a balance. The inhumanity into which this regime pushed this people and which it uses to push other peoples into it. The source of the darkness that has flooded the world more palpably than ever before in the last two years.

Родина-Мать

In addition to beauty and love, another important feature of these images is that they shed light on stories and identities that differ from the narrative of power. They are fallible and fragile, but they are real. They are alive, full of humor and absurdity. You can identify with them. Their contrast with the symbols of power often make the latter comic. Markov calls this “alternative or protest patriotism”.

“He was a «Russian Cartier-Bresson»”, said Kirill Serebrennikov, a leading Russian theatre director who collaborated with Markov. “He was able to capture the soul of the people, their DNA. If you want to understand Russians, you should look at Dima Markov’s photos.”

Markov lived in Pskov, photographed all over Russia, and had exhibitions in Moscow, Paris, Rome and New York. He was an advertising face of iPhone 7 – he also took most of his photos with an iPhone. This was a conscious choice: this is how he was able to take such close-up pictures of people and situations. His Instagram page has more than eight hundred thousand followers.

He did not just photograph this absurd and miserable world with love, but he also wanted to improve it. Since 2007, he has worked as a volunteer in a psycho-neurological institute near Pskov, preparing orphaned children for integration into society. “We managed to save all the more or less intelligent ones”, he says in an interview. And after he was arrested at a pro-Navalny demonstration in 2021, he took his most successful photo of a masked riot police officer under Putin’s photo at the police station. He put the picture up for auction, and transferred the two million rubles he received for it to human rights organizations that help the illegally detained.

Dmitry Markov, one of the greatest contemporary Russian photographers, died on February 16, at the age of 41, in Pskov.

“Rest in peace, Brother”, writes one of his followers under his last Instagram photo. “I don't even know how to write this. You and Lekha were my beacon in this hopeless hell…”