Victoria Lomasko: "When I was growing up, children’s books and other publications for children about the “friendship of the nations” among the fifteen Soviet republics made a big impression on me. I especially remember an issue of cult magazine Veselye kartinki, 'Happy Pictures,' published for the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Soviet Union. There was a story in it about how a little boy named Dima from Moscow got on a magical airplane and flew to every republic. An Armenian boy met him with songs about the mountains and grapes, a little Turkmen boy in a robe and tubeteika sang about a canal in the middle of the desert... The pictures were very beautiful, but brimming with orientalism.

“The bounteous, strong, friendly, and kind Motherland” fell apart before I was able to travel anywhere outside of central Russia. I only began my investigative journeys through the post-Soviet landscape four years ago. What kind of political and social processes are going on in these territories today? In some places, like for instance Kyrgyzstan, many people are nostalgic for the Soviet Union. In other places, like in Georgia and Ukraine, there are active process of decommunization. Some of the former Soviet republics are joining the European Union, others are drawn to the Muslim world. Nationalism is gaining strength, along with religion. With every new generation, the most important link between these nations, the Russian language, is falling more out of use.

It seems to me that there’s very little time left to document the remains of the Soviet empire and show the connections that still exist among these republics which only a former Soviet can see."