Chukotka

Name: Timur Akhmetov

Age: 34

Profession: Ecologist

City/Region: Chukotka

How long have you been doing photography? What style or genre most interests you? I started doing photography in school, as part of a "tourists circle." Since now I work more in sport tourism, than in ethnographic tourism, that is the genre I photograph now. I would like to get more involved in documentary photography, but so far nothing has come of it.

Can you give us a short description of your city and where your photos are from? I have contributed photos from three locations: the Kupol gold mine – the largest such mine in Chukotka; the winter road; and in Anadyr, the capital of the Chukotka Autonomous Republic.

What is something about your city that only locals would know? Chukotka is where the world's day begins. Chukotka has the places where the 180 degree [longitudial] meridian meets the Arctic Circle – a rather unique geographic point. Chukotka is home to the easternmost point in Russia – Cape Dezhnev.

Which places or sites are a must for someone to see if they visit your city? We don't really have sites, per se. Basically, all our cultural monuments are connected to local populations, nature and culture, borne out of these three things' connectedness. But it is totally worth traveling here to see the way of life of a native population which has been preserved to the present day, one that lives off reindeer herding and harpoon hunting of sea mammals.

Website: timurakhmetov.com

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.

Far & Away ~ Tales from Rural Russia

33 original stories about modern (and not so modern) life in rural Russia.

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin.

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.