Inkjet on Blueback paper, 90 x 110 cm
Location of print:
Chistoozyornaya ulitsa, Volgograd, Russia
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Our journey to the Volga Delta was preceded by one and a half days of heavy drinking. Finally! But it was not, as one would imagine, caviar and vodka. Those were provided the night that followed. After all, we were in Astrakhan, the city of poachers and merchants.
Habib, the skipper, must have been the only sober person on our boat and he knows his way around the delta. Hundreds of branches and waterways lead past kilometres of reeds into a vast lotus field where the tears of the Volga slowly seep into the Caspian Sea.
The print is pasted to a railway gate of the Titan-Barrikady factory in Volgograd. It reminds me of the entry into the world of the Morlocks, where H.G. Wells found himself on his excursion with the Time Machine, and where he also encountered the Eloi, the playful sunshine people living their thoughtless and delicate cattle life.