Lazarev’s House

Lazarev’s House is a documentary photography series that show the problems of a particular layer of the Russian population through a story of one family. Through the environment of the family members and the representation of their social experience, I am trying to show the audience one of the social realities of contemporary Russia.

Many tourist towns and villages are located in the south of Russia close to the Black Sea. One of them is Lazarevskoye. The main occupation of the local citizens is related to the tourism industry, and it is seasonal in nature. The XXII Olympic Winter Games took place in Sochi in 2014 and new infrastructure was created especially for this event. However, the income of locals has not increased due to new facilities. Unemployment, alcoholism, and poverty are still a big part of their everyday life.

I lived in the house of the Lazarev family during the whole summer of 2014 and took pictures of the everyday activities of each family member and their guests. I talked to all of them and tried to find the reasons for their poverty. These reasons are closely related to the system of their social stereotypes. The stereotypical lifestyle of a regular provincial Russian family is a social reality that they are used to. The members of this family believe that the gap between the rich and the poor in Russia is huge. Russia is among the countries with the highest rate of economic inequality and is approximately on the same level as Madagascar, Argentina, and the US. Also, Russia has a unique phenomenon, which is poor people who have a job. Economic inequality is mainly caused by the unequal ownership of capital, both private and state.

Lazarev’s House is a documentary photography series that show the problems of a particular layer of the Russian population through a story of one family. Through the environment of the family members and the representation of their social experience, I am trying to show the audience one of the social realities of contemporary Russia.