In the Cold

Photos and text: © Ksenia Diodorova

  • In Russia, it is a commonly held belief that immigration strangles our cities, our schools, our subway cars. Immigration is a flood we are drowning in. In truth, the flood is not where these people go, but where they come from. The true scale of immigration can only be understood by appreciating its source.

    In January 2014 I went to Tajikistan and stayed in Pamir for a month, photographing the Bartang valley and its people. When I returned to Russia I started looking for the children and close relatives of my subjects from Pamir, who were working in Russia. "In the cold" became a two-sided story about 24 families — both in Russia and in their native Tajikistan. This project is about migrant workers "from the very beginning" — about kishlaks, where they were born, about their parents, homes and children. Each human being is blood and soil, their family and their home. Also, there is nature — cold and warmth.