Photographer Olga Kravets documents modern life in Chechyna, a federal state of Russia, where Turkish-built skyscrapers tower over citizens and the government tortures young men if they show any sign of dissent.
In 2009, Ramzan Kadyrov proudly announced that “peace has come to the land of Chechnya.”The head of the Chechen Republic’s rise to power started back in May 2004, when Vladimir Putin appointed him deputy prime minister of Chechnya after the death of Kadyrov’s father. Since the age of 30, he has been given free rein in his country so long as he keeps the rebels at bay.
Three founders of Verso Images Collective document the capital of Chechnya with online guidance from Yuri Kozyrev and the Objective Reality Foundation.
Olga Kravets, Oksana Yushko and Maria Morina met when they participated in the spring 2008 workshop. A few months later, they developed a project which documents life in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. The photographers were attracted to Grozny, Ms. Kravets said, because it survived two wars and is so ethnically and religiously divided that it feels like many different cities simultaneously.
