The Russians Emerge

Heidi Hollinger, in a photographic tour-de-force, has captured the spirit of the Russian people as they adjust to their new freedoms. Her sympathetic portraits reveal how some "emerging" Russians relish their new opportunities while others, rooted in the past, struggle to survive in their changing world. The wide-ranging collection in this sumptuous volume includes images of workers, entertainers, artists, military officers, religious leaders, cosmonauts, Stalins great-grandson, and Lenins niece, among others. Accompanying the portraits is a fascinating text by Jonathan Sanders, who provides insight about the people of modern Russia and Hollingers importance in documenting them during this intriguing, troubled era.

For nearly a decade, Hollinger has lived in Russia, at first as a visitor and gradually as an insider, gaining access to such high-profile politicians as Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin, as well as other top-echelon personalities. At the same time she explored Moscows lower depths: mounted on in-line skates and armed with mace, she invited typical Russians to her studio to pose for a portrait. Her "working folk" images are in the tradition of pre-Revolutionary masters, who also wandered through the streets in search of representative faces to photograph.

Heidi Hollinger, who was born in Montreal and lives in Moscow and Montreal, contributes her work to leading publications, including Newsweek, Time, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine. Her photographic books have been published in Canada and Russia. Over the last decade she had more than thirty one-woman shows across the world from Omsk, Siberia to Los Angeles. Her photographic books have been published in Canada and Russia. Her photographic books have been published in Canada and Russia. Jonathan Sanders is a well-known historian and veteran CBS News Moscow correspondent. He served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and taught courses in Soviet and Russian history and television at Columbia University. The former assistant director of the Russian (now Harriman) Institute, Dr. Sanders is currently the Director of the Project on the Russian Future. He is the author of Abbevilles critically acclaimed book, Russia 1917: The Unpublished Revolution.