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Jonas BendiksenRUSSIA. Birobidzhan,
Jewish Autonomous Region of Russia. 1999.
Stalin looks out on his creation while Raisa sews .
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Jonas BendiksenRUSSIA. Birobidzhan, The Jewish Autonomous
Region. 1999. The first Jewish homeland of modern time, created 20 years before
Israel, located in Far-East Siberia. People waiting for the morning bus in the
freezing winter, which often reaches -40 Celcius .
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Jonas BendiksenRUSSIA. Altai Territory. 2000. Villagers
collecting scrap from a crashed spacecraft, surrounded by thousands of white
butterflies. Environmentalists fear for the region's future due to the toxic
rocket fuel.
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Jonas BendiksenKAZAKHSTAN. 2000. A Soyuz rocket fuel tank lies on the steppe.
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Jonas BendiksenRUSSIA. Altai Territory. 2000. Dead cows lying on a cliff.
The local population claim whole herds of cattle and sheep regularly die as
a result of rocket fuel poisoned soil.
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Jonas BendiksenMOLDOVA. Transdniester. 2004. Crows circle a statue of
Lenin in front of the Supreme Soviet building. Transdniester is in many
ways one of the last bastions of communist nostalgia in the former USSR.
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Jonas BendiksenMOLDOVA. Transdniester. 2004. Patrons of "Red
Heat", a local bar, drinking under banners with the Soviet hammer &
sickle. In Transdniester, nostalgia for the USSR runs very high.
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Jonas BendiksenMOLDOVA. Transdniester. 2004. The population
of Transdniester is mainly ethnic Russians, and the main
religion is Russian Orthodox Christianity. Here a priest gives
his blessings before a christening in the icy waters of January.
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Jonas BendiksenMOLDOVA. Transdniester. 2004. Steel mill.
Despite the nationalist rethoric of the breakaway war with
Moldova in 1992, critics of Transdniester see their quest for
independence as a power grab by factory chiefs and economic
elite of the region. Nearly all of Moldova's heavy industry was
located in the Transdniester region, and Transdniestrian
independence is catastrophic for Moldova.
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Jonas BendiksenABKHAZIA. Sukhum. 2005. Babushka "Tanya,"
an elderly ethnic Russian woman, heads back to her bombed
out apartment building after walking her dog. Despite the
damages, three apartments remain occupied in the building.
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