Soviet Union Photographer Captured Public Nudity When Such Images Were Illegal
When photographer Nikolay Bakharev was born in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s, he entered a strict world where artistic expression was tightly regulated.
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Orphaned at the age of four, Bakharev was placed in state care, where he first encountered photography after stumbling upon a plastic Smena camera.
In 1970, Bakharev was assigned to a job in a steel factory in Novokuznetsk, a Siberian city dominated by heavy industry. Soon after, he began working as a photographer for state-run Household Services, making official portraits in schools, factories, and public institutions.
But as the Soviet Union began to collapse in the early 1980s, Bakharev turned to private portraiture. He traveled to nearby river and lake beaches, such as Cheryomushk, where workers and families gathered to relax. These beaches were among the few public spaces in the USSR where any form of nudity was tolerated. At the time, the circulation of photographs containing nudity was forbidden, as was a private commercial enterprise.
“Almost any image of a naked body was considered pornography, which was against the law,” says the photographer. Here, he created a deeply human archive of unvarnished Soviet life: intimate, unguarded portraits of people in moments of quite tenderness—parents embracing their children, couples pressed close, friends drinking in the afternoon light.
Bakharev’s camera served as a means of connection. “There must be a mutual relationship,” he says. “They need to understand that I am not watching my sitters — it’s as if I’m part of the picture… A picture should not be beautiful, but interesting, then you can find beauty. Beauty is in the human relationships that are formed.”
Bakharev has previously been nominated for the Deutsche Börse photography prize for his 2011 exhibition at the Venice Biennale and released Novokuznetsk, published by Stanley/Barker, in 2016. His latest book Cheryomushki is also available to purchase through Stanley/Barker.
Image credits: Photographs by Nikolay Bakharev.
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