Bertien van Manen snaps five young Russians enjoying a brief escape from the seismic shift in their country’s fortunes
In the years immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen travelled through some of the outlying states, living with families and documenting ordinary lives. One of the books she produced about those travels was called Let’s Sit Down Before We Go, a reference to the Russian custom of taking a quiet moment before a long journey to reflect on the place you were leaving and imagine where you were going next.
Van Manen’s pictures captured a whole empire in that kind of limbo. Sometimes, as here, temporary refuge might be found in a vodka bottle. The young men on this camping trip, to the shores of Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, have hung their empties on a line, a trophy each for the five of them, and one for luck. The two boys standing appear to be enjoying the sunlit freedoms of the holiday; the two staring into Van Manen’s camera under the piratical flag might fancy themselves in Lord of the Flies.