"Blurred of inexpressible horror"

The French photographer Patrick VAK removed the coast of the Sea of Azov before and after the outbreak of war. Look at these frames

The French photographer Patrick VAK first hit the shores of the Sea of Azov in 2019 and then returned four more times, from 2021 to 2024. He visited the Russian and Ukrainian coast, and the annexed Crimea. His photographs from there compiled the book "Azov Horizons." It will be presented at the photo festival in the French Arle, which will open on July 7, is one of the main world festivals of photography. "Medusa" publishes photos from the book.

Here's what VAK writes in the preface to his book:

In the memoirs of my first summer in Russia - lilac reflections on turquoise water, the last swimwear in shallow water, aromatic smoke of barbecue and the ringing of glasses, marking the end of a sunny day. This unique soft and colorful light has become my guide on the shores of the Sea of Azov, where I have been returning every summer since 2019. <...>

But this story about the summer, which I hoped to fill with light, also turned out to be the chronicle of the world on the verge of disappearance, covered by the war, which will soon burst out. Already in 2019, the region was a zone of tension: in the Donbass fought for the fifth year, Crimea was annexed, and the Sea of Azov was actually controlled by the Russian fleet. On these peaceful shores, the world stood on the edge of a historical abyss. Almost three years have passed since Ukraine lost its Azov horizons; Few Ukrainians ever hope to see them again. <...>

The story begins with intimate pictures of the first trip to the Russian coast in 2019, then transferred to the Ukrainian coast in the summer of 2021, especially to Mariupol and Berdyansk - just a few months before the first of them was erased from the face of the earth by Russian bombs. <...> Then the narrative is transferred to the occupied Crimea, and then again to the Russian coast in the summer of 2022 - to the country where militaristic propaganda and the mass denial of the obvious reign. <...>

In the Russians, I saw what fascinated and annoyed me for 11 years of life among the Chinese: warm, disarming cheerfulness in combination with anxious indifference to truth. In the summer of 2023 and 2024, I again crossed the border to photograph the regions of Southern Ukraine occupied by the war occupied by Russia. Other shores, where resistance in the face of horror over a year was replaced by a feeling of abandonment and often with despair. <...> This is the backdrop of incomprehensible horror - both for us and for them.