"Satellites" Photographs from the Fringes of the Former Soviet Empire
Jonas Bendiksen
Magnum Photos
“Satellites” is a multi-year project illuminating the scattered enclaves, unrecognized mini-states, and other isolated communities that straddle the southern borderlands of the former Soviet Empire. I always think of the outlying republics and areas of the former USSR as little moons that were pulled together by the immense gravity of Moscow, the nucleus of the Soviet Empire. They were provided with socialist uniformity, historical certainty and common destinies. But when those forces fell apart along with the fall of communism, all these isolated little enclaves wandered off into their own versions of history.
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As is well known, the Soviet collapse spawned fifteen new countries that are now established members of the international community. However, economic, political and ethnic disparities, often results of gerrymandered borders and divisions, also gave birth to a series of unrecognized republics, national aspirations and legacies far less known to the public. While some of these “countries” have actual physical borders, others exist primarily as separatist dreams inside the minds of their inhabitants, or as dark historical memories. “Satellites” is a photographic journey through these countries that in many ways do not actually exist. The itinerary takes us through places such as Transdniester, a breakaway republic in Eastern Europe, Abkhazia, an unrecognized country on the Black Sea, the religiously conservative Ferghana Valley in Central Asia, the spacecraft crash zones between Russia and Kazakhstan, and the Jewish Autonomous Region of Far Eastern Russia. In sum, the experiences of these scattered communities shed light on the chaos and lack of completion of the Soviet break-up. The ghost republics in this project are left with none of the certainties of their old Soviet reality, and have yet to enter the new world order.
