Kazbegi

Originally from Ukraine, I received a classical art education, graduating from a five-year art school with a focus on academic painting, drawing, and composition. Since 1998, I have been working in photography. I began with analog cameras and various types of film — 35mm, 60mm, black and white, positive, and negative. Later, I enrolled in the Kyiv Theological Seminary and became an Orthodox priest. After two of my photographs were published in Playboy magazine, I was demoted in rank, and in 2009, I left the priesthood entirely and transitioned to working in state television. There, I worked as a cameraman, video editor, and sound designer. For over ten years, I have actively produced photo and video content for stock agencies, which has broadened my experience and versatility as a visual artist. From 2019, I worked as a photographer and videographer at the Moscow Government’s Department of Industry. I held several solo photo exhibitions in Moscow, and my materials are still used in industrial and cultural publications as visual content. Between 2013 and 2015, I independently filmed a documentary about the birdlife of the “Velykyi Luh” National Park in Ukraine. The filming took place in a strictly protected area with permission from the Ministry of Ecology. The film was screened at festivals and now serves as a scientific document — the ecosystem it portrayed was later completely destroyed during the war. When the full-scale Russian invasion began, I left Moscow and moved to Slovakia. In Europe, I shot documentaries about Gesäuse