It was a time when Chukchi forgot how to get whales. For a long period only whaling ships have shot whales. They have brought whales to the shore and people only butchered the monstrous carcasses. But the time came, and again Chukchi had to take a weapon in their hands and become a hunters.



The book is a part of a project I've worked for the last six years. It is about native people inhabiting the north-east of Russia – the South Kuril Islands, Kamchatka and Chukotka. I spent several months with the indigenous northern peoples – Chukchi, Evens, Eskimos – reindeer herdsmen, fishermen and sea mammal hunters. As a result the series of photographs “Lands at the Edge of the World” appears.