Inkjet on Blueback paper, 90 x 110 cm
Location of print:
Ulitsa Leytenanta Shmidta 3, Astrakhan, Russia
view on map

At its very source, the Volga river is a mere runlet through the mosses of a Valdai hill. I drove up on an early and chilly May day in 2019. There wasn’t a single soul present, although a long row of empty wooden kiosks were ready to welcome the masses for the imminent national holiday.
The only person I met after some time of wandering through the glades was Sister Rafaila, who was on her way flattening all the molehills with a hoe. I asked if she lived here. She replied in such a cheerful, carefree and relaxing way: Of course.
The woman radiated a lightness that I would have liked to capture, but with the setting up of the tripod and the cumbersome procedure, everything seemed to be blown away at the time.
In early August 2023 I pasted her likeness in Astrakhan, the last place to be on the Volga before the river spreads through the delta into the Caspian Sea.