Dom

Dom explores shifting meanings of home, loss, and belonging through portraits of my friends—immigrants from Russia and Ukraine. In each photo, there is an object of their choice that evokes a sense of home. Threads serve as both protection and metaphor.

Dom stands for "home" and "house" in Russian.

This topic has always been sensitive in my family. My great-grandfather’s home was destroyed twice during dekulakization — the Soviet campaign of political repression. After I was born, my mom and I were forced to move twice, in 2000 and 2019, for safety reasons. I left my country in 2022 after its government started the war against Ukraine and have not returned since.


The project explores different edges of feeling at home, losing home, and trying to find one. During my first two years of immigration, I had long conversations with my friends and neighbors from Russia and Ukraine, who left their countries. I photographed them in their apartments abroad, in cities ranging from Tbilisi and Limassol to Prague and Berlin, alongside objects that helped create an ephemeral sense of home. In the end, these objects became only a thread, a starting point for untangling something deeper and far more complex.

Dom does not seek to compare the stories but to delve into the multiple dimensions of home and the questions that have followed me since childhood and have now become even more crucial.

 While working on the project, I felt like I was putting back together the pieces of home, which was scattered and, for some of us, completely destroyed.

As time passes, many things continue to change. In Ukraine, the meaning of language, identity, and belonging is being reshaped amid ongoing destruction and daily loss of life. In Russia, new laws are being introduced, the internet is getting increasingly restricted, and messaging platforms that once helped immigrants stay connected with their families are being blocked, making it harder to maintain those connections.

Recently, I added another layer to the project. For safety reasons, I began covering my subjects’ faces with threads. Friendships across national lines have become socially fraught. At the same time, in Russia, speaking up and participating in such projects leads to political persecution. The threads therefore function both as protection and as a visual metaphor. There is an expression “to sew someone’s mouth shut,” meaning to silence a person. This echoes the fragile boundary between protection, self-censorship, and vulnerability.