web analytics

The Portrait of the Russian Blogosphere

I was pleasantly surprised to discover the project by the Moscow photographer Kirill Kuzmin – Bloggers’ Portraits in Black and White. The project that has started a few months ago aims at creating a classic photogallery of Russian bloggers. Those who have already taken part range from a cello player through an icon painter and personal shopper to a ballet reviewer.

(Incidentally, I don’t think there are many cello players, icon painters and ballet maniacs in the West who have discovered blogging… still).

According to our agreement, I will be posting short interviews with some of the participants, which will be not a small task considering that I have to edit and translate, too. The first post, however, is dedicated to Kirill himself, and below is our short chat in Russian.

In brief, here’s what we talked about.

http://static.video.yandex.ru/lite-audio/marylou/f6fj9odfb7.1007/

Although he was working as a designer and illustrator for a magazine for a long time, Kirill has only started taking photography seriously in 2001. He found inspiration in the work of the father Nikolai, a friar at the Optina Monastery. Later on he also took inspiration from the work of Laslo Gabany (an incredibly successful wedding photographer as well as a lovely person), Mikhail Kalamkarov (one of the masters of contemporary pictorial photography), and Alexander Slyusarev (a legendary Russian photographer). His favourite genre is portraiture. I asked him if he liked introducing certain metaphorical objects: for instance, I love snapping streetlights, a friend of mine is mad about angels, another friend is equally mesmerised by doors of all sizes and colours. As far as Kirill is concerned, there is nothing more fleeting and interesting for a photographer than a human nature. I dare say the galleries that have already been completed prove the point.

ottenki_serogo.livejournal.com

Russian blogosphere develops primarily via LiveJournal and LiveInternet as platforms, and this partially explains why the culture of commenting is possibly slightly more widespread than in the West. This is especially true of the author’s responses; whether you are a mere personal blogger or a celebrity publisher, you respond to comments. Certain LJs regularly develop discussions and even disputes through comments. The range of topics is, frankly, overwhelming, as well as the ranks of personalities. Blogging has been incredibly popular among politicians, journalists, (wo)men-of-arts even before Ashton Kutcher assembled his stupendous Twitter following. Having said so, the topic of privacy should make a curious subject for discussion, while HRs are still to wake up to the Euro-American practice of checking out an employee’s social networking life before offering them a job. There is a cliche in my homeland that “Russia is ahead of the whole planet“, and it seems that this is true about blogging, as well – even though the readership may be primarily Russian, too.

In this post I used photos of myself, as well as four of the participants. Sergei is a popular Russian citizen journalist who occasionally reports from punk and Goth weddings in Moscow. In all seven years in Manchester I haven’t seen so many punk vows being taken so regularly. Boris is a cello player at the Bolshoi Theatre and the creator of Russia’s leading forum about classical music. Evgeniy and Mikhail each write about their personal interests and offer freebies and tickets to their readers; both represent great examples of establishing relationships with readers. And Julia… no introduction needed.

The project’s gallery – Bloggers Portraits in Black and White.

Kirill Kuzmin (фотограф Кирилл Кузьмин), an official site

Kirill’s blog in English

Author: Julia Shuvalova

Julia Shuvalova is the author of Los Cuadernos de Julia blog. She is an author of several books, a translator, and a Foreign Languages tutor. She lives and works in Moscow, Russia.

error: Sorry, no copying !!