Grozny: Nine Cities

Grozny: Nince Cities project in Lenta.ru

We are really happy that our project was published in Russian for the first time in Lenta.ru (one of the leading media portals in Russia) special project Country that ceased to exist. For the first time we’ve also presented there a number of the interviews taken for the project, including the one with Akhmed Zakayev, one of the best-known Chechen exiles.

Crowdfunding campaign on Emphas.is

It has been amazing journey of almost two months since we launched our campaign on Emphas.is -  the website that offers photojournalists a chance to interact directly with the public and to secure funding outside of the mainstream media.

We have been supported by 47 backers so far (there might be more already when you visit the website!), and what is may be the most important, we have established channels of communication with the future audience for our project. We’ve reached Chechens not only in Chechnya, but in diaspora in UK, Norway, Belgium, Finland and Jordan. We had the first Russian publication of the project by Lenta.ru - leading online media in Russia, which was a great start of sharing what we’ve done for the past two years with Russian audience. As Irina Meglinskaya, the prominent Russian curator noted on the importance of crowdfunding for projects on Russia,  “it’s just a new form of financing stories about civil society by civil society itself at the times, when many seek funding either in US State Department or in Kremlin”. 

There have been also interviews by BBC’s The Strand

and Voice of Russia in London

and posts by DVAFOTO

and Conscientious

The responsibility is huge now. We HAVE to finish shooting the project. We HAVE to be in Chechnya on the election day, March 4, to witness the return of Vladimir Putin, responsible for the start of the second war in Chechnya, from there.

We are still beyond our funding goal, but it seems perfectly reachable - there are recent examples of crowdfunding showing that people even got far more than the funding goal in the last few days.

Please support us with a pledge or publication! Every little helps! 2014 will mark the 20th anniversary of the first Chechen war and we need to have a web-documentary launched before it, which requires us finishing shooting this year.

Big thanks in advance from all three of us!
Olga, Maria, and Oksana