Sarah Hurst's Photo Gallery
Welcome to my photographs from the former Soviet Union, 1990-2000
My first and only visit to the Soviet Union was in April 1990, when I
spent a week in Moscow and Leningrad on a sixth-form college trip. After
A-levels and the collapse of the USSR I studied Russian and History at
the University of Birmingham.These were the trips I made to Russia and
Belarus during my student years:
Voronezh, 1992 - one month
St Petersburg, 1993 - two months
Minsk, 1994 - five months
My enthusiasm for Russia was so great that I decided to move there as soon as I graduated. So in June 1995 I went to St Petersburg, my favourite city in the world, and lived there until April 1996, working for the St Petersburg Press (now the St Petersburg Times). When I returned to England I published my own book about Russia, A Shrimp Learnt to Whistle.
Donkey
Askeran
Nagorny Karabakh
June 2000
In February 1998 I went back to Minsk for a week to research the soft drinks industry for a company in London, but I didn't take any photos. However, that spring I spent 10 days in Kalmykia, the only Buddhist region of Europe. I was there to write about the construction of City Chess, a complex of luxury cottages and a playing hall in the steppe, which was to house the participants in the 33rd Chess Olympiad. The event was overshadowed by the murder of newspaper editor Larisa Yudina, who had written critical articles about Kalmyk President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is also the president of FIDE, the world chess federation. I campaigned for a boycott of the Olympiad but achieved little success because chess players were more interested in representing their country than in the politics of a tiny Russian republic.
For information about my book, Curse of Kirsan: Adventures in the Chesss
Underworld, CLICK
HERE
In April 1999 I spent two weeks in Georgia writing articles for the magazine CIS Today, which is now sadly defunct. And in July 1999 I moved to Baku, Azerbaijan, to work for BBC Monitoring. I stayed there until June 2000, when I returned to England via Armenia and the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh.
These pages are a record of my visits to the former Soviet Union and a
tribute to all the people who have endured 12 years of changes.
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Azerbaijan
Belarus
Georgia
Russia: