All photos © Arseniy Kotov / FUEL Publishing
PHOTOGRAPHER ARSENIY KOTOV takes a hands-on, boots-on-the-ground approach to photographing his home country. His new book, Soviet Seasons, is the result of traveling vast distances across Russia and the former USSR, with the goal of showing “how beautiful and diverse are the cities and nature of this vast region at different times of the year.” For those outside the former Soviet Union, who could perhaps be forgiven for reducing its seasons to either “snow” or “not snow” with each spanning about half the year, the book reveals wonderful gradients of weather, vegetation, and daylight that accompany seasonal change in various regions.
As in his previous book, Soviet Cities, the photographs on display are the result of years of travel across truly vast distances, often via hitchhiking. And while there’s certainly plenty of monumental, brutalist buildings on display here, the book also covers non-urban constructions such as dams and rural monuments, as well as the crypts of Ossetia’s “City of the Dead” (above).
Like Kotov’s previous book, this one is being published by London’s Fuel Publishing. Check out more of Arseniy’s work on Instagram.
