Russia. Siberia: the sleeping land.
61 images Created 23 May 2016
Siberia is not only the land of gulags but also a place of the most uncontaminated of the Earth, its landscape is of a desolating beauty of an indelible fear. Here are still intact habitats, ranging from the Mongolian steppes to the taiga, tundra to the high peaks of the Altai mountains.
The name of this ancestral land, Sibir, comes from the mystical fusion between the Mongolian siber beautiful, pure and tartar Sibir, sleepy land.
In Siberia coexist hundreds of ethnic groups and peoples of religions very different.
The Orthodox Christian religion is the most widespread in Russia, while the Catholics are estimated 1% of the population.
Ordinary people say that Siberia is the quintessence of Russia or the ideal country that Russia would like to be. In the minds of these people, Siberia is represented as a pole of purity.
One of the reasons why people are attracted to this land is that here they feel in themselves the boundary between the temporal and the eternal, between what is changeable and Truth, between what goes in and ruin what it is preserved.
Caritas, the Latin word which means "brotherly love", work since 1991 in Western Siberia, in a geographic area that extends eastward from Ekaterinburg to Keremovo region, north reaches the Arctic Ocean, along the great rivers like the Yenisei, the longest river in Russia, the Ob and Irtysh and south runs along the border of Uzbekistan-China, covering an area of 2.5 square kilometers.
Caritas provides a response to various social problems in Western Siberia such as care for children and orphans, most of whom live in extreme poverty, amid alcoholism, drug addiction and domestic violence; support for single mothers with children, attempting to create a healthy and rich environment for their own development and that of their children; and aid to those who are elderly, sick, handicapped, homeless and poor.
Of great importance for Caritas is the protection of the family as a basic element of Russian society and as a natural place for the development of moral and spiritual of its members, especially children. With this reportage I documented stories of simple and humble people who live hard lives and their ability to maintain a sense of dignity in suffering, a sign according to their Orthodox Christian culture, the presence of Christ in the land of Russia. Caritas in Western Siberia, with its charitable activities and its Christian values of love and brotherhood, seeks to awaken this "sleeping land" that has a potential indefinite and unlimited, as its geographical extent, that finds in the depths and in the folds the soul of its people; a people which is characterized by the spontaneity of feelings and their depth for better or for worse, for the generosity and solidarity, for his peaceful nature, for the ability to sacrifice the individual self to a higher moral good.
In Siberia coexist hundreds of ethnic groups and peoples of religions very different.
The Orthodox Christian religion is the most widespread in Russia, while the Catholics are estimated 1% of the population.
Ordinary people say that Siberia is the quintessence of Russia or the ideal country that Russia would like to be. In the minds of these people, Siberia is represented as a pole of purity.
One of the reasons why people are attracted to this land is that here they feel in themselves the boundary between the temporal and the eternal, between what is changeable and Truth, between what goes in and ruin what it is preserved.
Caritas, the Latin word which means "brotherly love", work since 1991 in Western Siberia, in a geographic area that extends eastward from Ekaterinburg to Keremovo region, north reaches the Arctic Ocean, along the great rivers like the Yenisei, the longest river in Russia, the Ob and Irtysh and south runs along the border of Uzbekistan-China, covering an area of 2.5 square kilometers.
Caritas provides a response to various social problems in Western Siberia such as care for children and orphans, most of whom live in extreme poverty, amid alcoholism, drug addiction and domestic violence; support for single mothers with children, attempting to create a healthy and rich environment for their own development and that of their children; and aid to those who are elderly, sick, handicapped, homeless and poor.
Of great importance for Caritas is the protection of the family as a basic element of Russian society and as a natural place for the development of moral and spiritual of its members, especially children. With this reportage I documented stories of simple and humble people who live hard lives and their ability to maintain a sense of dignity in suffering, a sign according to their Orthodox Christian culture, the presence of Christ in the land of Russia. Caritas in Western Siberia, with its charitable activities and its Christian values of love and brotherhood, seeks to awaken this "sleeping land" that has a potential indefinite and unlimited, as its geographical extent, that finds in the depths and in the folds the soul of its people; a people which is characterized by the spontaneity of feelings and their depth for better or for worse, for the generosity and solidarity, for his peaceful nature, for the ability to sacrifice the individual self to a higher moral good.
