Ekaterina Solovieva
May 7, 2018
The Earth´s Circle. Kolodozero
I’ve always been roused by reading about the lives of saints, and of people who choose to live as servants to those who need them. Perhaps because their work is of a humble nature, it’s not often we get to see these lives in pictures. Ekaterina Solovieva’s new book, ‘The Earth´s Circle. Kolodozero’ conveys us to a village in Northern Russia where a rebel punk, Arkady Shlykov, came to serve as a priest.
Seeing fragments of Arkady’s life is a jolt back to virtue. I want to turn off the arrogance, the baseness of the daily news, and sit with this work instead. Solovieva’s book has many merits, not least the photographer’s dark and idiosyncratic style. But the very personal illustration of this priest’s quiet life is what makes the work so compelling for me. Her photographs reveal a hard life, with a light of innocence at its center.
- Lisa W.
You can find more on the book here:
https://www.schiltpublishing.com/publishing/authors/ekaterina-solovieva/
The Earth´s circle. Kolodozero
Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam, 2018
ISBN 978 90 5330 8998
schiltpublishing.com
Fifteen years ago, these places (the remote village of Kolodozero and the lake shores) enchanted three friends from Moscow who were strolling around the north and searching for the meaning of life, and most likely, themselves as well. In 2001, they jointly gathered resources and started building a new church to replace the old one that was burned down back in 1977. One of the friends, the redhead rebel and punk Arkady Shlykov, who graduated from the Moscow Spiritual Seminary, accepted the ordination in 2005. 40 years later, therefore, parochial life was born anew in the village. The stern locals at first cast much suspicion onto the shaggy-haired, rockstar-resembling priest, but later on came to love him wholeheartedly. They accepted his freedom, both external and internal, and appreciated his character — peace-loving and gentle. This is a story about the people of the Russian North, about what keeps them together, about the spirit and soul, about their passions and emotions. Four days after the book was published, on February 12th 2018, I got sad news from Kolodozero. Priest Arkady Shlykov suddenly died after a heart attack. He was 45 years old. All the years he lived in Kolozero he took all the problems and sorrows of the people of the village very personally, helped them selflessly. He used to spend hours hitchhiking to the remote communities to baptize, read the funeral service or just serve in the temple. And at some moment his heart gave up. © Text and photo Ekaterina Solovieva
ekaterinasolovieva.com
Russia, Karelia
2009 – 2017