When you grow up, you do not hesitate to absorb all that is surrounding you without asking any questions. And you take in the atmosphere of tiled roofs, and brickstone churches, and cobblestoned roads, trees broken by sea breeze... All of this is something you are taking for granted. Could it be any different? Over time, you realize that the image of Russia celebrated in works of literature and Russian language books are not identical to those images that you are used to see since your childhood.
The Kaliningrad region is a former provincial capital of East Prussia (Königsberg). Now it is the Western region of Russia, the most remote oblast, the most alien part.
My project - it's an ode. The ode to the image remaining to us from the former East Prussia, which unfortunately did not "strike root" to the Russian people, who now live in this place. It is an exlusive world full of natural beauty, clean lines and closeness to the traditions and history. I wanted so much to share the joy of the sudden comprehension of beauty, so familiar that it is no longer noticed.
It travels from town to the sources, close to nature, to the memory of the earth and space. There are so many personal things - some lived and felt by me, some are images of my own childhood, some was told by the legends about the spirits of trees, forests and streams, in which people were believing in the pagan Prussia and also some traditions were brought in by Russian people. But a lot of what was valuable here, left in the past, falls apart brick by brick, rust, broken and lost.
Why the Prussian Bride? Because for me, in my quest to describe this image, this land is a woman, an eternal bride, pure and young, but knows and remembers so much.
