From the beginning of the new decade the landscape of the provincial Russian town of Cheboksary has been subject to significant change. Positioned by the Volga river and known as a “town of seven ravines,” it is a capital of a peripheral Russian region. The processes that have taken place in that town are very typical for the entire countryside of Russia.
Accessibility to real estate loans and the wish of newly-minted citizens to have their own apartments are whipping up developers to overbuild previously unused territories in the town boundaries. First of all these are lands, neighbored with ravines, outskirts and private housing. The huge amount of cheap housing has changed the view of the town dramatically.
Being raised in this town, I couldn’t recognize its contours and forms during my visits in the last few years. Its character has changed and it’s never going to be the way it was.
I decided to depict the everyday life of the town with the background of raising buildings and cutting down hills.
— Sergey Novikov, Moscow, Russia
