MICHAELCHRISTOPHERBROWN

WORKS: SAKHALIN

2008

Photographed predominantly in the broken, rusted, skeletons of communities around Sakhalin Island, Russia, these images explore the wintry atmosphere of a place and its people, long scarred from the Soviet era and left behind in modern times.

  
  
Some of the Soviet-ear bloc apartment complexes in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, taken from a commercial airline while departing Sakhalin.
     
  
   
A woman waits for her child outside a store in a fishing village along the eastern shore of Sakhalin.
   
     
  
   
  
A desk receptionist at the Yubeleiyna Hotel, an upscale hotel in Sakhalin.
     
  
   
  
A couple relaxes at The Chameleon Bar, a young and liberal minded Russian bar in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
     
  
   
  
     
  
   
  
     
  
   
At a restaurant in a town formerly dominated by a now-defunct paper mill. The town is located in the Terpeniye Gulf region, along the eastern coast of Sakhalin.
   
     
  
   
Street life in Korsakov.