Memory of Service - 730 days in the Russian Railway Troops. Order № 79, USSR / Память службы - 730 дней в войсках РЖД. Заказ № 79, СССР Collaged flowers and sweet memories of young men in the Russian Railway Troops in 1981. One of the inspired album that I photographed in the Pamir. The Railway Troops of the Russian Armed Forces (Железнодорожные войска ВС России) are involved in ensuring the defense of Russia. They perform the tasks of rail services: preparation, construction, reconstruction and protection of the objects of railways. It is the oldest such force in the world, established in 1851 by Emperor Nicholas I.

The wandering soviet During soviet times, around the 1980’s, itinerant photographers would occasionally come up to the remote valleys of the Pamir in nowadays Tajikistan, equipped with a large camera. They would announce their services and would take portraits of whoever wanted, most likely against payment. Once the job finished, they would go back down to a faraway city to develop the film, maybe Khorog, to print it in black and white, hand paint it, frame it and bring it back up to the mountains months later. In a time when photography was rare, this was a valuable possession. And in our era of digital memories, it still is… This is the story I have been told, of the wandering photographer walking the valleys of the Pamir; and my eyes always marvelled at those memories hanging in few homes that I visited. In an effort to keep those art objects that will eventually disappear, I photographed them.