“My path is to show the disconnect between reality and the picture on TV.” The story of a Kuzbass blogger behind the viral photoshoot of women against a backdrop of urban decay

Beauty against the backdrop of chaos

The women from Mezhdurechensk contacted me and asked me to promote their services, Kristina’s as a makeup artist and Tatyana’s as a lash technician. I said, “You’ve come to the wrong person. Have you seen the kind of content I make? I’m always getting into some kind of trouble with scoundrels. You’d be better off finding some female [photographers].” Kristina replied that advertising lash services with beautiful women was too predictable. So I suggested, “Let’s photograph the women against the backdrop of the city.”

Many cities in Siberia, particularly in Kemerovo Oblast, look terrible. I hadn’t been back to my home region for 15 years, and I can see how much it has deteriorated. When we were shooting, we didn’t have to go looking for locations or head into the slums. I have a video of us walking from the square with the monument, one of the city’s central public spaces, and entering the nearest courtyard.

The building in the photo where the red-haired woman is standing on the steps and two others are walking is a hospital right in the city center. The photo where the women are doing lash extensions on a treatment bed against a backdrop of rust and mold was taken on the other side of the same building. It’s not some abandoned place on the outskirts.

Kristina and Tatyana created a VKontakte group and invited women from Mezhdurechensk to take part in the photoshoot. Everyone understood the idea behind the project and supported it. They still do, and the conversation in the group continues. But one woman became afraid [of the consequences of the publicity] and asked us not to post any more photos of her.

Other city residents supported the idea too. They provided us with hard hats, brooms, and other props for the shoot almost at the snap of a finger. We shot for two days so we could get everyone dressed up. Each model’s makeup took about an hour.

The idea behind the photoshoot is pretty obvious, and it could be done in a great many Russian cities. I’m going to say something that deserves to be carved in stone: we have very beautiful people. They dress stylishly and look great. Everyone is ready to post photos of themselves on Instagram*. The only problem is the backdrop. In some cities, you simply can’t find a beautiful public space.

A call from city hall

After the video featuring photos taken on the streets of Mezhdurechensk was published, Kristina received a call from a woman at the city administration (editor’s note: Natalia Moskaleva, head of the Mezhdurechensk administration’s entrepreneurship department), who began asking whether she [the beauty professional] was registered as an individual entrepreneur. Kristina wasn’t scared at all. She’s that kind of woman, as she herself puts it, she “doesn’t give a fuck about anything.” I’m quoting her to convey her attitude accurately. She is a little wary of getting involved with foreign agents, but she hasn’t asked us to take anything down.

Tanya, the lash technician, is the more anxious of the two. She tends to look to Kristina for guidance. At the same time, they’re both quite brave. They were a little nervous and called me because media outlets were contacting them and [journalists] were tracking them down. I told them, “What did you expect? This is exactly what we were trying to achieve. You wanted views and reach, and now you’ve got them.”

After that, I called the official myself and recorded our conversation so I could post it on social media. As I told Moskaleva herself, I decided to give her a little jolt. Because I’m sure that if someone were to scrutinize her work, they’d probably find some violations. Nothing personal, it’s just that officials doing their jobs badly is a systemic problem.

When officials feel they can act with impunity, they start pushing the boundaries further and further. It’s a fundamental human trait: until someone gets a smack, they don’t understand where the limits of acceptable behavior lie.

That’s why I called [Natalia Moskaleva]. First, to stand up for Kristina and Tanya. Second, because after a call from the administration, some regulatory or inspection authorities might show up at the women’s business and start checking everything they can. Whether the premises comply with sanitary regulations, whether the wiring, fire safety, and air quality are up to standard. They can find fault with absolutely anything.

From the ski slopes to blogging

I’m from Novokuznetsk. In 2010, I became a certified snowboarding instructor, and from then until 2025, I lived in Krasnaya Polyana, a ski resort near Sochi. Snowboarding instruction is seasonal work, so during the off-season I work as a freelance programmer, web developer, and photographer.

An experience in Krasnaya Polyana prompted me to become more active in covering public affairs. I was teaching my five-year-old daughter to ski when resort employees approached me. They told me I wasn’t allowed to teach her because they thought she was someone else’s child. I filmed our conversation and posted it online. The video received 2 million views.

Back then, I felt like Michael Douglas’s character in the movie Falling Down. In the film, an ordinary office worker is walking home, everything seems fine, but then some absurd situation occurs and he snaps.

When I saw the reaction to that video, I realized that my path as a blogger was not to photograph beautiful places like Krasnaya Polyana or Altai, but to show the disconnect between reality and the picture on TV.

That same winter, when I posted the video of my daughter’s ski lesson, I went to Sheregesh, a ski resort in Kemerovo Oblast and one of the most visited in the country. Sheregesh is a horror movie in its own right. It looks more or less like Mezhdurechensk, except that in winter everything is covered in snow. In summer, you can see gravel, potholes, crumbling facades, and so on.

During the off-season, I posted a lot about what was happening in Sheregesh. For example, I showed how the renovation of the village’s only school, costing 800 million rubles, was still ongoing in its third year. That video received almost 1 million views. Or I showed a house belonging to a former official that stands on forest fund land.

I didn’t have to search for anything, dig up information, or conduct complicated investigations. I simply look at the condition of public spaces, especially sports facilities and playgrounds, many of which were built with public money. I’m now one of the most popular bloggers in Kemerovo Oblast, with almost 18,000 followers on Instagram*.

I’ve also become something of a leader of an informal association of professional snowboarding and ski instructors. We have an ongoing conflict with ski resorts: they require instructors to obtain accreditation from them and pay for the right to work on resort property. If an instructor hasn’t done so, their client may be prohibited from using their services. We believe this practice is unlawful and are fighting it, including by involving the prosecutor’s office and the Federal Antimonopoly Service.

At one press conference, the governor of Kemerovo Oblast described ski and snowboarding instructors as “scurrying around.” I didn’t like that word. So I asked him in my blog, “Who do you think you are?” and generally began drawing attention to him as a public figure.

Don’t be afraid to speak up

There’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed online, including after we published the “Beauty Against the Backdrop of Chaos” photoshoot: even among the people who support us, there are some whom I call defenders of the regime. They try to find a logical explanation for any situation: why someone has to jump over a puddle every day, why a stroller has to be pushed over gravel, why a road is falling apart.

“What do you expect? There’s no money in the budget. This is a coal-mining region, and coal prices are low,” these people write. It’s a defense mechanism: you have to convince yourself that something abnormal is normal. Every day, someone comes along and asks, “What is this? Why do I have to walk through this every day?” And that defense mechanism kicks in against them: the attacks and arguments in the comments begin. But why should I care whether the budget is in deficit or surplus? Why is there a puddle in my way?

Dealing with those attacks is psychologically difficult. I’m constantly struggling with depression, but I can’t stop covering these problems either. The further I go, the more interesting it gets.

These days, boys and men are afraid to open their mouths because tomorrow they might be summoned to the military enlistment office and told, “You’re an assault soldier now.” Business owners are afraid of pressure from regulatory and inspection authorities. Everyone feels that speaking out publicly could lead to trouble.

I’m not afraid of them coming for me, giving me 15 years or something else. What I’m afraid of is living in fear and doing nothing. I believe you have to fight for your future, and I’m trying to do that myself.

I’ve also realized that courage alone isn’t enough. You need to develop what I call informed courage. That means not just going out and saying that everything is bad, but knowing how to take the next steps: understanding the issue, documenting the problem, contacting the relevant authorities, and working toward a result.

I see that most citizens don’t exercise their rights. But the tools are there. Federal Law No. 59 governs citizens’ appeals, and a government body must respond to an appeal within 30 days. If someone sees a violation, they can contact the prosecutor’s office. There’s also the “Solving Together” app on Gosuslugi: you can take a photo of a problem with your phone, and the information, along with its geolocation, is sent to the relevant system.

After my posts, people started sending me their stories: there’s a problem here, another one there, something happening somewhere else. I’m not going to personally file complaints with the prosecutor’s office about every broken road in Mezhdurechensk. I have plenty of other things to do. But I want to help people understand their legal rights and give them the tools I’ve learned to use myself, so they can solve their problems independently.

I also want to encourage people not to be afraid to speak up about what’s happening around them, to use social media and exercise their rights, including the right to freedom of thought and expression enshrined in Article 29 of the Constitution.

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