Book Description
"Satellites" is the culmination of Jonas Bendiksen's
fascinating seven-year photographic journey through unrecognized countries,
enclaves, and isolated communities on the periphery of the former Soviet
Union. From Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Siberia, he
takes us into little known places where the stark legacy of the Soviet
collapse continues to evolve: Transdniester, Abkhazia and Nagorno Karabakh,
the Ferghana Valley, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the spaceship crash
zones on the near the Kazakh steppes. In these outposts, the transition to
the post-communist world order brought mixed results - some lost everything
to bloody civil wars, while others find themselves in tiny pariah states
that remain all but closed to the outside world. Some evolved peculiar
self-styled brands of capitalism, others simply packed their bags and
left.
15 years after the fall of the USSR, Bendiksen's haunting photographs and
text explore these restless territories' search for historical, religious
and ideological identity, and forms a timely look into unfinished chapters
of Soviet history.
Back Cover copy
Satellites is a compelling journey through unrecognized
countries and isolated regions in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the
Caucasus and Siberia. In this lyrical but unsentimental collection of
photographs, Jonas Bendiksen takes us into the little-known worlds of
Transdniester, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Ferghana Valley, the Jewish
Autonomous Region, and the spaceship crash zones near the Kazakh Steppe,
and in the process reveals that the narrative of the Soviet collapse
continues to evolve.