I started the series when Ivan, the elder brother, was 16.  Andrey, nicknamed “Moon”, the younger, was 14. The two brothers used to live in a distant village in the northern part of Russia. Later they moved to Severodvinsk to study. Ivan has just went to army in May, 2013, Andrey is preparing for his second year of studies at a local technical school where he’ll have a practice at a submarine constructing factory.

When I photographed them the first time they were not like city teenagers, with completely different moral values and a fairy tale world inside: they went hunting and fishing, could use a joiner’s chisel, playedwith ghosts at abandoned places, did not want to move to a city, loved nature. Mature and childish. Naive and enigmatic.

We became good friends, staying in permanent contact within years.