ALENA ZELENSKAIA
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​​​Russian-speaking Refugees in Germany
Master Project
​

​This photo series was taken between March 2014 and September 2015 in various asylum housing facilities across Bavaria and Berlin, Germany. The images accompanied my Master’s thesis (European University at St. Petersburg, 2016), which explored the identity formations of asylum seekers from Ukraine, Russia (particularly Chechnya and Dagestan), Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The photographs document daily life in a range of accommodation types — from transit camps where people lived for months in shared rooms awaiting initial interviews and further relocation, to Christian asylum centers, and container settlements on the outskirts of cities. The photos pays attention to spaces of waiting and adaptation. The aim was to capture how the material conditions of reception shaped both everyday practices and the longer processes of identity negotiation in exile.
​Oblivion
Russian-speaking Minority in Southern Kyrgyzstan


This photographic project grew out of an unpublished longread originally intended for media publication. It is rooted in a field trip conducted in collaboration with the University of Tübingen in 2018, followed by extended independent visits throughout the same year. A journalistic investigation evolved into a visual narrative about memory, identity, and what still holds a community together — or lets it fade. The images document the neglected condition of Christian cemeteries traditionally associated with the Russian minority in southern Kyrgyzstan, particularly in the Osh and Jalalabad regions. They also trace how local disconnection from these places reflects broader processes of cultural distancing and the shifting meanings of belonging in a post-Soviet landscape. The photo series was exhibited as part of the DocuLab documentary photography exhibition at Re:forum Berlin in November–December 2024.
​Marriage Migration Project
PhD Project

​These photographs do not constitute a standalone photographic project but were taken during field research and interviews conducted as part of the project "Spousal Migration from Visa-Requiring Third Countries to the European Union" (LMU). They capture moments and settings from interactions with interviewees. The images have been used as visual illustrations in academic publications, presentations, and during conferences, providing context to the ethnographic work and complementing analytical reflections on bureaucratic practices, intimacy, and mobility.
Not Just a Spa Town
Communist Labour Camps of Jáchymov

These photos were taken during my participation in two separate but closely related projects in Jáchymov, Karlovy Vary region, Czech Republic, between July 2024 and June 2025. The photographs document the remnants of the Jáchymov uranium mines and labor camps, which often served as the last stations for political prisoners during communist time in Czechoslovakia. Through this work, Jáchymov emerges not merely as a spa town, but as a complex site of layered histories — a place marked by suffering, resilience, and the ongoing efforts to preserve and transmit memory across generations. The photographic project presents an abstract vision of the former uranium mines, focusing on their textures, dark colors, humidity, and rust. These elements allude to the harsh realities and the hard labor endured by the imprisoned.
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2025
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