Capturing Traditional Life in Russia

Nadia Sablin lives and works out of Brooklyn, New York City, but she grew up in Soviet Russia and the American Midwest. Her photographs have been featured in museums and galleries. She captures images from primarily Russia and the United States.

Sisters Aleftina and Ludmila Sablina spend half of each year in a small Russian village that has changed little over the decades. Both in their 70s, they carry on with their traditional way of life, chopping wood for heating, bringing water from the well and making their own clothes.

The sisters lived together when they were children, then worked in technical jobs: Aleftina in engineering, Ludmila in chemistry.

Neither married nor had children. Now they live off their pensions and some help from their other siblings. When not in Alekhovshchina, they each stay in their own apartment in separate towns, visiting each other occasionally.

Text and photographs by Nadia Sablin

  Enlarge   The sisters gather the last batch of strawberries in their garden.

 Enlarge   Ludmila poses on a birch tree stump with a rusty sickle.

 Enlarge   The sisters use a two-handed saw to cut wood. While most neighbors have upgraded to chainsaws, they continue to use tools that have been in the family for decades.

 Enlarge   Aleftina and Ludmila bring planks scavenged from a sawmill reject pile. The planks will either be used to build a new fence or burned in their stove.

 Enlarge

Nadia Sablin lives and works out of Brooklyn, New York City, but she grew up in Soviet Russia and the American Midwest. Her photographs have been featured in museums and galleries. She captures images from primarily Russia and the United States.

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