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A visit to some Arkhangelsk fire-souls regenerating self-sufficiency and village culture in the face of urbanization.

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We have been on an artist´s residency in Arkhangelsk, North-Eastern Russia, a region which has been strategically important since medieval times as a trading outlet to Europe and has strong ties to Norway. We are developing a documentary on Dacharegenerating self-sufficiency which we researched during the 3 weeks. In the city of Arkhangelsk which borders The White Sea we visited a friends dacha area where people escape the city and in this creative haven of individuality and grow their own produce. Eva did a workshDSC_0258op on her work with fermentation at the artists centre and we were well looked after by the Barents artists.

After a week we travelled 10 hours south to beautiful Kargopol on the Onega river to see the timber buildings and famouse churches being restored after decades of neglect.
DSC_0277We then trained overnight east (we love Russian trains) to Kizema followed by a journey down muddy rutted roads to the almost depopulated former  soviet village Tarasovskaya in Ustyansky region.

 

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Here Antonina has bought several houses and is running a fantastic project encouraging children to connect with nature and village life.

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We then travelled back west 5 hours to Shenckursk where the industrious Бронский  family of several generations produce and sell rose-bay willow herb tea, keep a cow and horse and bake daily on their traditional Russian oven. Their long warrenous traditional log house is home to all of this: We made kampooch, cheese, whey bread, milked the family cow, had a sauna and were warmly welcomed into family life, hard work, good food and good fun.

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IMG_1913  DSC_1044DSC_0908DSC_0849DSC_1039DachaArkhangelsk

Thank you to everyone who hosted us for generous hospitality and guidance in ever fascinating, fast changing Russia and of course to the Hight North Residency program http://www.highnorthair.org and the Barents Secretariat www.barents.no

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