Australian photographer Dean Sewell spent 15 months in Russia after the breakup of the former USSR. When Russia invaded Ukraine, he was suddenly reminded that he still had more than two dozen undeveloped B&W film rolls from 1996 to 1997. Sewell managed to find the film and get them developed, and the resulting images are an amazing time capsule from the early days of the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
In 1996, a young 25-year-old Sewell quit his staff photographer position at the Sydney Morning Herald where he started as a cadet press photographer in 1989 to live and work in Russia. He wanted to cover social, political, and environmental issues of the day across Russia and some of the former Soviet satellite states.
“I was interested in the politics and culture of Russia from a relatively young age,” Sewell told PetaPixel. “I grew up in a working-class family, so my upbringing was very politicized. My father was involved with trade unions here and was aligned with the hard left. My family was anti-imperialist America and followed events surrounding Russia, and I guess this rubbed off a bit.
“I wanted to further my photographic practice, shift from the single image mentality of press photography at the time, and move more into long-form visual narratives.”
Before 1996, Sewell worked primarily as a general press photographer in Australia. He did, however, in his effort to try his hand at more in-depth, narrative-based photojournalism work in Latin America. He traveled there twice, spending around six months in total working on personal stories in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Equator, and Cuba.
“I was extremely naive back then, but I believed the work I produced there was personal preparation before heading to Russia,” admitted Sewell.
Most of the work is from Moscow, but St. Petersburg was also covered as well as cities across Siberia or south of Moscow. Other cities were Grozny in Chechnya, Samarkand in Uzbekistan, and Tbilisi in Georgia.
When Sewell hit the ground in Moscow, it was like walking through a Dostoevsky novel. The country was plagued by poor finances, with many shops out of business. But there was hope for the new democracy and press freedoms.
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| A Russian bride on her way to her husband in a typical outdoor setting for many middle-class Russians. |
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| Russian ballerinas ready themselves backstage before their stage appearance. |
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| Russian street festival for youth on the grounds outside of Red Square. |
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| Subway passengers negotiate stray dogs while boarding trains in Moscow. |
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| Russian orthodox wedding inside of the Rostov Kremlin, Russia. |
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