Do business. Break new ground. Show off. Make money out of thin air. Being successful is the thing everyone is expected to achieve in modern society. A businessman is today’s hero. Books are written about him. Films are shot about him. It’s a new idol and role model.
The hero of yesterday was a mere peasant. His image was romanticized by Tolstoy and Chekhov in the XIX century. The same was during the short period after the XX century revolution. Now country men are marginalized.
I myself on one half belong to the family of simple men. My relatives are the same simple men, peasants.
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“Kristina Syrchikova has been shooting the project ‘Men’ for several years in the Russian province. The subject of roadside, of a simple imperceptible man, gets very lively and truthful. From well-established TV advertising images it sends us to the common people — plain-spoken men, on which unbeknownst to all, our life rests. Glorified as heroes in Soviet times, they became outcasts of nowadays. And it is even more interesting to look into the faces of these people, now forgotten. The series is also interesting as it has no black and white accents, but simply enables us to understand what this life is, in all its diversity and simplicity”.
Elena Sukhoveeva