If you are from a Western European country like me and come to Russia the first time things look rather strange in the beginning. I wouldn't call it a cultural shock, but you have to get used to the different style and way of life of the Russian people. Some things look quite the way you expect them, as they are drafted in your clichés you have about Russia. Being part of the everyday life in a small Russian town is sometimes like acting in a Russian movie. It doesn't matter how many times I travel to this country Russian life always reveals exciting, but also strange aspects. The more I have seen the more everything becomes normal, but it still stays another and a different world.

In 2005 I travelled the first time to the town, where Tatiana, my wife, grew up before she decided to move to Germany. Going by night train from Moscow it takes at least 13 hours to arrive in this town in the southern province of Russia near the Ukrainian border. Nobody would usually think of visiting a village in this region unless there is a personal clue like Tatiana has been for me.

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Tatiana's Town

Photos and Text: © Peter Irmai

After my first trips to Russia in the years before when I only photographed sporadically, I decided to begin with a more concentrated work focusing on the personal environment of Tatiana's place, her parents or the people she knew from earlier times. I never arranged anything, I just let things happen and took pictures of the pictures I saw. Anyway, in those early days I was unable to speak Russian at all and my only way to communicate and to take part in life was to use my cameras, in other words to use visuals instead of words.
This was the beginning of an extensive photographic work that later emerged also as other projects like "Russian fashion", "Just an ordinary life" and "The last Russian pictures".


With the panoramic images I started during my stay in Moscow before travelling to the South. I thought a huge city like this deserves a wide screen. For the very main part of Tatiana's town I used different 35mm cameras, the panoramics you may consider as a kind of bonus track. Because these pictures are never shown before I decided to choose them for 1:1 magazine.