Turgenev girls

From the author

A few years ago, in Vladivostok, my friend Irina told me about “Turgenev girls” - a female image that was very close to her.

"Turgenev girls" come from the books of Ivan Turgenev, but their image was distorted over time. The heroines of Turgenev for the sake of their beliefs were ready to conflict with society. Now, the Turgenev girl is understood as a person, idealistically tuned and soft, sentimental and fragile, living in dreams and experiencing problems with relations in the outside world.

Irina and I compiled a list of modern “Turgenev girls”: modest, simple, romantic, good manners, feminine, avoid bright makeup, vulgarity and aggressive sexuality, dress in retro style, love vintage clothes, enthusiastic about literature and classical music, play musical instruments, say in several foreign languages ​​(most often French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French and French Italian), they know how to dance a waltz, pour paint, having heard gross expressions, adhere to strict moral principles, come from different social classes, are not part of one community ...

I made portraits of such girls living both in Moscow and in small cities of the south of Russia - in their usual environment, for their favorite activities or against the backdrop of a local landscape - and accompanied the photos with short texts about their life.

Buy the album of Philip Erbe "Turgenevsky Girls"