Ekaterina Vasilyeva

 

After the Firebird is an ongoing project that began in 2010. The Russian village is rapidly sinking into oblivion. The sad statistics show that in Russia over the last two decades almost 25 thousand rural settlements disappeared within the map of Russia. According to sociologists about the same number are on the verge of extinction.

My story begins long time ago when my grandmother and grandfather, both from the Pskov region (Russia), met in Leningrad (St. Petersburg now), got married and stayed there for the rest of their lives. But it could have turned out very different. I am now a modern city dweller but could have been born among those flowering fields and hard-working people. In his village, my grandfather used to be called a gypsy because he could predict the approach of someone’s death. He always knew that he would escape injury and survive two wars. Concerning my grandmother, he said that she would outlive him by exactly ten years. This prediction also came true.

Over the last five years that I have been documenting people from the small village Andrushino in Pskov region, I have been subconsciously looking for overt or covert manifestations of people’s magic. I think that it is as much a part of our being, as history and geography. Faced with the fabulous world of folklore you soon realize that it is rooted in real ground and that all the beliefs and superstitions, charms and rituals, tales and fables are not just a warehouse of archetypes of the collective unconscious, but an immediate response of the collective soul to the mysterious currents of the natural elements.

 

Ekaterina Vasilyeva is an independent photographer, working at the intersection of documentary and art photography. Her work has been featured in several solo and collective exhibitions throughout Russia. Vasilyeva has won numerous awards, including being selected as a finalist in Eaststreet 2’s ‘Street Photography from Eastern Europe 2014’, and ‘You know what I’m Seeing’ – An international photography group show, curated by Gwen Lafage (Carte Blanche Gallery) San Francisco, the International Festival of Photography PHOTOVISA 2013, and the Young Russian Photography 2013 Competition in the FotoDepartament Gallery in St. Petersburg. She was also named the 2012 Laureate for Young Photographers of Russia.