Zabereg Photobook

This book gives you a rare chance to immerse yourself into daily life of villages located in Pinega district in the North of Russia, hundreds of kilometers away from a nearest big city.

Look around. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by endless snow, freezing cold and conspicuous silence, there’s a hazy lonely light trembling in an ancient wooden hut.

Come close and meet loving, innocent, strong people who live on their own but open the doors to a sympathetic listener.

Their tiny world is on the edge of the extinction. Forests are taking over the villages. Songs are getting lost in silence. Traditions are getting buried along with their bearers.

“Zabereg” book is based on a personal project by a documentary photographer Arik (Vladimir) Shraga who explored tiny villages in Pinega district of the Arkhangelsk region. Between 2008 and 2019 he photographed and interviewed dozens of their last remaining residents in an attempt to capture the moments before those villages got deserted.

The book contains author’s impressions and transcriptions of the stories told by the locals. The photographs are supplemented by delicate illustrations carefully crafted by designer Ola Netta Levitsky and artist Eugenia Shraga. The original picture for the cover is created by artist Alexander Iudashkin.

Language: Russian

Hardcover: 88 pages

ISBN-13: 978-965-599-606-7

Book Weight: 450 g

Dimensions: 173 mm x 226 mm