4° Edition
Chechnya : Spasibo
After the conflicts of the previous two decades, Chechnya remains the scene of great human distress. Davide Monteleone spent time there from December 2012 to April 2013, and chose to illustrate how the Chechen identity is jeopardized behind the appearance of calm and prosperity skilfully maintained by the regime.
Security forces attending the 10th annual celebration of Constitution Day. In the background, the five gleaming Grozny-City Towers, the heart of the reconstruction of Grozny and a symbol of the city’s recovery following the destruction wrought at the beginning of the millennium. Grozny, 23 March 2013.
Born in 1974, Davide Monteleone has lived between Italy and Russia since 2003 and has received numerous awards for his personal projects, in addition to working as a correspondent for several international magazines. He returned for four months to Chechnya, the little “republic” of the satrap (“governor”) Ramzan Kadyrov, who has eliminated any challengers within the country and imposed the return of the Chechen language, traditional dances and a provincial, retrograde form of Islam (mingling Sufism, fanaticism, male chauvinism and polygamy), all with the consent of his backer Vladimir Putin. Alternating serious, silent black-and-white portraits with pictures of reconstructed Grozny and the war-scarred landscapes of Chechnya, the photographer unmasks the realities hidden by the forced “thanks” (spasibo) addressed to the tyrant. The suffocating atmosphere, the generalised brainwashing and the omnipresent fear are reflected in the eyes of young women resigned to their fate or old men dispossessed of their bearings and their country.
Elistandzhi, Chechen Republic, Russia, March 2013 © Davide Monteleone for Fondation Carmignac
