Portraits of rural Russians by Pavel Bezrukov

August 7, 2007 4:47 AM

Portraits of rural Russians by the photojournalist Pavel Bezrukov. He is born in 1962, and started with photography as a hobby. Currently freelancing as a photo correspondent for the Moscow-based Orthodox magazine Foma. Some more samples of his work can be found at Orthodoxy Photo.
posted by Harald74 (22 comments total)

Good link. That photo of the smoking scholar next to the candle lamp is freaking amazing. It's my new wallpaper.
posted by Gnostic Novelist at 5:15 AM on August 7, 2007

Wow, these pictures are stunning. Excellent. This is one of those photographers who captures an essence of humanity, a slice of the soul.

Gotta say, that very first portrait from your first link, I immediately thought: this is what Leonard Cohen would look like now if he'd had a harder life.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:19 AM on August 7, 2007

Amazing snapshot of a moment... It still amazes me how weathered many of their faces are. I remember my neighbour in Kiev celebrating her 55th birthday while I was there, and my surprise that she wasn't 20 years older. The older photos from the Orthodoxy link are fabulous. I am reading 'Natasha's Dance' by Orlando Figges at present, and have just read his explanation for the Russian preference for wooden buildings - that they are linked with the Russian identity while cold stone buildings are linked to western culture, cold, austere, non-Russian. Thank you for posting the link.
posted by gnomesb at 5:27 AM on August 7, 2007

Lots of religious icons, but I thought....oh wait, the photographer was *born* in 1962. So these are contemporary photos. Wow.
posted by DU at 5:28 AM on August 7, 2007

Beautiful shots, thank you. And the comments at that first link are hilarious.
posted by nevercalm at 6:33 AM on August 7, 2007

The one of the pleasant Karelian/Finnish-looking woman reading was so jarring after seeing the photos of roughend, older people. These are fantastic!
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:52 AM on August 7, 2007

Beautiful shots, thank you. And the comments at that first link are hilarious.

Only if you find mental retardation hilarious.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:54 AM on August 7, 2007

Which, you know, I do.
posted by nevercalm at 7:03 AM on August 7, 2007

Which, you know, I do.

Yeah, there's some sort of line those comments cross for me. I can't tell you why, but that type of ignorance grates on me while I can laugh at other forms.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:13 AM on August 7, 2007

Great photos. Thanks for the post.
posted by languagehat at 8:29 AM on August 7, 2007

fantastic. Mefi's been a bit slow recently, but this really redeemed everything.
posted by Geezum Crowe at 8:37 AM on August 7, 2007

These are gorgeous. Thank you.
posted by biscotti at 9:05 AM on August 7, 2007

Thank you for the nice comments. English Russia (the source for the first set of photos) are a few steps below Fark regarding comment maturity, but the blog itself occasionally has good posts.
posted by Harald74 at 9:21 AM on August 7, 2007

Beautiful - some look more like paintings than photos. The first one in the first links looks like a Rembrandt. Thanks Harald74!
posted by madamjujujive at 10:35 AM on August 7, 2007

I can scarcely believe these are contemporary. Thank you.
posted by Space Kitty at 11:17 AM on August 7, 2007

This is really, really great. One of my favorites is the guy grimacing at his beer about halfway down.
posted by ORthey at 11:35 AM on August 7, 2007

Gotta say, that very first portrait from your first link, I immediately thought: this is what Leonard Cohen would look like now if he'd had a harder life.

I seriously thought the exact same thing. Whoa.
posted by ORthey at 11:53 AM on August 7, 2007

I don't know what's so fascinating about seeing new faces, but it is.

And the beer holding/squinty guy? I think he has leprosy or something; that might explain the look on his face. Check out his beer holding hand.
posted by snsranch at 4:10 PM on August 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh, yea, I did a double take seeing photos of Lenin on a couple of walls.
posted by snsranch at 4:19 PM on August 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Gorgeous.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 4:35 PM on August 7, 2007

Ninety percent of FPPs about photographs on MeFi blow. This one doesn't.
posted by Faze at 4:46 PM on August 7, 2007

Russians do cool things, too, like this spider-tractor...
posted by anthill at 8:12 PM on August 7, 2007