Photojournalism nominee

If you take a 4-hour drive from the Caspian Sea shore and the Dagestani capital Makhachkala you will reach an ancient village Chokh in Caucasus mountains. Zaur and Salikhat Tsoholovy - the only young couple in the village who preferred to stay here instead of going into the big cities as almost everybody has done. They restore the abandoned houses. Run bakery. And dream about the prosperity of their village in the future. Old traditions and preserved architecture are still alive in the mountain villages. But people prefer to move closer to the cities, to the comfort, to the shops and factories. To the places where they think and decide instead of you. There are almost no blacksmiths, masters of stone and wood, millers in this place as there used to be. The houses are ruined. Old traditions and native languages are disappearing. This project is aimed to film this process, to freeze the time at least on the photo.

Born in Moscow,1965. Painter. Member of International union of graphic artists since 1990. Professional photographer since 2000. Worked for Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Salon Interior, Interni, Wallpaper, Travel+Leisure magazines. Collaborated with Photo Tass in Beirut in 2007. Portraits and fashion shootings for Esquire, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, L’Officiel, Vogue, Forbes. From 2009 regularly works on assignments for Russian Reporter magazine. Artworks are in museums and private collections. From 2013 teaches courses of portrait and documentary photography at British Higher School of Design in Moscow. Finalists of many international awards.