Stepan Rudik Portfolio

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3.   This series was taken in the mental house of the photographer’s native town (Ukraine). Photographer stayed with the patients for a week, followed them throughout their daily activities and spent the night in the hospital. The topic of psychiatric disorders is hushed up in the society, and to have a mental patient in the family is often considered shameful. Not just in Ukraine, but in many parts of the former Soviet countries mentally disordered people as a rule become outcasts. Mental health services are much institutionalized and hospitalization rate is high. Clinical psychology, outpatient mental health services and social work in the Western sense is hardly available, especially in smaller towns, and psychiatrists have a low threshold for hospital admission. Most of the care given to the patients in specialized hospitals consists of simple exclusion of these patients from the society and using tranquilizers. They are rarely offered any occupation, let alone ergotherapeutic activities in these clinics and don’t have much to do. Living conditions in this particular provincial mental house were dire. Ukraine, 2006
19.   Ritual rock painting at burial sites of Ukraine (All graphic images are made on the reverse sides of the gravestones) From olden times, cave man had a desire to capture something from his everyday life, and nourished hope maybe to prolong that moment, by giving it a memory and by giving it eternal life. The first pictures which are known to us depict hunting scenes – thus, something which occupied the bulk of time, getting food which gave life. This was his main activity, and the main topic in cave paintings. Little has changed in the modern world – man all the same longs to leave behind memory for the descendants, a sign of the spent life. While the next generation want to keep a remembrance of their ancestors, the close ones, and friends. To keep in their memory the people who are passing over, because a whole world, by which he had lived, passes over with a man. And similarly, there are ‘’rock paintings’’, which nowadays cover burial stones and monuments, tombs of the late ones. Putting engravings about the dead person’s life on tomb stones is a very common ritual in Ukraine, as in other countries of the former USSR. This kind of art is popular amid middle-class inhabitants, and ritual engravers’ business is flourishing. Only these days such pictures depict a much wider range of manifestations of life. Typical themes for depicting on a tomb stone is a symbolic presenting of what the deceased person was – profession, occupation, lifestyle, various interests, dreams, achievements, aspirations, or some scenes from life. In the grand scheme of things, it’s like drawing all the same livelihood hunting, resources extraction, but in a more sophisticated way. One can find on these grave stones pictures of idyllic landscapes characteristic to these places. And thus, by reading pictures alone, one is able to tell something about a complete stranger. One can even follow history and development of a country. In a way, it can be treated as an illustrated history of the whole nation, which is comprised of individuals. Ukraine, Kiev, Kharkov, Izmail, 2011, 2012
34.   Orphanage 2005-2008, Ukraine, Boarding schools for orphaned in Staraya Bassan. There is nothing more sincere than a smile of a child, and for me, a smile of a child bereft of parental care is twice as moving. In the country with the population of around 46 millions, according to official sources the number of children without family is over 100,000. Children get into orphanages when their parents die or if they have been deprived of parental rights through the courts. It is not rare that the reason for termination of rights results from alcoholism of the parents and as a consequence, their inability to take care of their child. Alternative to the state orphanage system, family-type children’s homes start to appear in the country, and adoption is being encouraged by the government. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the orphaned children are kept, brought up and study at the state orphanages, where these children don’t feel like home because there are too many of them, they are bereft of parental fondling, of real welfare and social adaptation. Having graduated from the state orphanage, they are simply not fit for the life and don’t have certain basic skills. The amount of money allocated to orphanages from the state budget is clearly insufficient. During the presidential campaign throughout 2009 in Ukraine, which population was badly affected by the economic crisis, the topic of social support of families and orphaned children was actively exploited by various election candidates. WWII Veterans Ukraine, Kiev, 9 May 2009. The Last Soldiers of the Great War. Every year on the Victory Day, less and less of these old veterans in WWII uniforms take to the streets of Kiev and other cities. This holiday is celebrated in Ukraine and most other former Soviet Union countries on the 9th of May, and it is probably the last patriotic high-day uniting people in former USSR republics; the holiday which is sincerely respected by different generations. Ukraine suffered heavily during the Nazi occupation – destroyed cities and burnt out villages, population exposed to harsh repressions and execution. Kiev was abandoned to the enemy; and more than 100,000 of peaceful citizens, among them a lot of Jews, priests and prisoners of war were killed here by Nazis between 1941 and 1943. This war dramatically changed the geopolitical map of the world. Almost 65 years after, the reasons, the course and the results of the war were given repeated revaluation, thousands of books were written, and there is very few of living witnesses and simple soldiers of that war left. There is no country anymore, in the name of which they fought; their government remembers about their existence on holiday, vast majority of old people live in poverty; and politicians in the wake of presidential elections in Ukraine again and again exploit the topic of social benefits to the veterans, with little hope for change for the latter.
60.   ukraine for people
76.   As the Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev said, «You will not grasp her with your mind Or cover with a common label, For Russia is one of a kind – Believe in her, if you are able...» * A series of images of the life in Russia, with all its absurdity, peculiarity, oddity, fun and craziness – everything that comprise every-day life of a man in Russia. Just trying to contradict the poet above.
99.   Moscow police has the reputation of being one of the most corrupted power structures. A typical working day of a district policeman of one of the municipal Interior Affairs departments of Moscow, Vasiliya K. whose official duties include keeping law and order in the entrusted district. His duty is to register all the accidents, murders, thefts and other criminal incidents. Russia exercises the law of personal registration at the place of stay, and it is illegal for foreigners to be on the territory of Russia without registration with the militia. Thus, the vast majority of a policeman’s time is taken by dealing with labour migrants from the states of the former USSR. They come in big numbers from economically less favourable neighbouring countries and do low-paid jobs of construction workers, street cleaners and odd-jobbers in the capital. They often live here illegally or without any right, and militia carry out raids to catch them. At the same time, personal life of Vasiliya is unsettled, and he is using work of the same semi-legal construction workers to renovate his tiny apartment. Russia, Moscow, 2009
110.   Thousands of people flock to Moscow in order to fill the niche of the low-paid workers on private and municipal construction sites, or in communal services. The vast majority are residents of poorer Central Asian former Soviet republics – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, as well as Ukraine and Moldova. They are responsible for a non-negligible part of the development of the capital. So, despite all xenophobic reaction, they are most welcome. “Gastarbeiters” (guest workers) are the most disadvantaged and vulnerable group of the Russian capital, whose rights are violated and who often suffer both from the exploitation by their employers, and extortions from the corrupted authorities or the police. The Moscow police has the reputation of the most corrupted power structure in the country. In Russia, the law on obligatory registration in your place of stay is in force, and makes it illegal for a foreigner to remain in the country without such registration. Thus they become an easy prey. Policemen organize raids and round-up operations for these people, take their passports from them only to give them back to the owners in the police station, in exchange for a bribe. Russia, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, 2009, 2010
128.   This is a series of photographs dedicated to the everyday life of a Moscow train station, these gates of the megapolis. Hundreds of personal dramas of meetings and leaves enact here every day; the windows of train carriages, like TV screens, tell us stories of people. Satiated Moscow like a magnet attracts thousands of labour migrants from poorer neighbouring regions, who daily penetrate into it through the train station’s doors, legally or illegally. Russia, Moscow, 2009
143.   red st.petersburg
144.   “Red Petersburg” is a photo essay about the city with one of the most dramatic and rich histories. Saint- Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad and Saint-Petersburg again as of 1991. It’s the city which has forever made it into history because of the “Red” October revolution, which drowned the Russian monarchy in blood and opened a new historical epoch. Disturbing red colour, a red detail in each image – was a formal thread which enabled me, the author, to tell about different faces of the modern Petersburg. The Russian “intellectual capital”, modern European center, the city-museum which has preserved its classic image, and the city of naval colleges. Its history, including the heroic defence of Leningrad and the horrible blockade during the WWII, is not just part of the city and Russian history, its part of world heritage. Starting from its foundation by the tsar Peter I the Great on the unfit for building swampy ground and its forced construction in record short time, this city, according to a European diplomat of that time, “has cut a window to Europe” and in fact opened Russia for Europe and the world. Some people say, little has changed here for the last three hundred years. Indeed, tsar Peter the Great “dwells” on an advertisement big board, Nicolas II – in the museum, and literary heroes of Dostoevsky inhabit the streets of the city.
159.   The city of Grozny is the regional capital of the Chechen republic, and a part of the Russian Federation. The word “grozny” translated from the Russian language means “arousing fear” or “threatening with peril”, “deathful”. The history of the Chechen republic is complex and full of fighting, tears and bloodshed. Ever since the beginning of the XIX century Russia has been striving to bend this small but proud-hearted people to its will. In the course of the latest two wars, in 1994-1995 and 1999-2000, the capital Grozny was actually razed to the ground, there were no unharmed buildings left in the city. After Ramzan Kadyrov was brought to power in the republic, the city of Grozny is being rebuild at incredible pace as a Muslim facade for the new regime. In just five years old or broken houses disappeared completely. No reminders of the war in the city. Those who come back, former inhabitants of the capital, cannot recognize what used to be their city in the past. The organisation of space changed, old axes and squares are gone. The current population of the city amounts to around 270 thousand people. However, the city looks very empty, with only few people in the streets. Grozny resembles a lifeless ghost city, a mirage of the city, which has popped up amidst the wasteland of destitution and ruins of the post-war Chechnya. The central avenue of Grozny bears the name of the president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, Russia being the main investor of reconstruction and restoration of the city which it once destroyed. To date, it is the biggest building project on the territory of the Russian Federation. Russia, Chechen republic, 2012
170.   poland today
207.   Project Meet Your Neighbour - is a project about foreigners, immigrants who have chosen to live in the city of Poznan (Poland). In the recent years, Poland's population is gradually decreasing due to rising emigration and declining fertility. After the country's accession to the European Union a large number of Poles have emigrated to Western European countries in search for work. In 2004 Poland became a member of the European Union and joined the Schengen Agreement three years later. At the same time, the standard of life and Polish economy have become much better due to European Union investments. Poland became a more interesting country for immigrants from different countries, mainly from economically less developed countries like Ukraine and Belarus. Suitable conditions for opening own business as well as almost no corruption and loyal taxes, allow a stable life. Heroes of this project are immigrants with different fates, histories, lifes and professions. Poland, Poznan, 2014