Sergei Chilikov

Two Holidays

This project is presented by the Museum “Moscow House of Photography”

Two Holidays: Calendar Ecstasy

The photographer from Ioshkar-Ola, who graduated as a philologist and has a Ph. D. in philosophy, presents two ethnographic cycles dedicated to holidays. The first, «A Small Town Holiday», was shot in Velsk of the Arkhangelsk Region during the celebration of the Town Holiday. In Velsk this usually takes place on the last week-end of June, and Chilikov has some friends living there, so he had a chance to photograph it for four consecutive years. This cycle, as the author himself says, is a project of «universal praise», being at the same time the result of a «somewhat spontaneous shooting».

The second cycle, «Praying to the Radiant God», was made in October, 2007, in the Village Kukmar, that is situated fifty kilometers away from Ioshkar-Ola. The pagan ritual continued from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. with the local authorities being present. Some two-three thousand people gathered together: they lighted fires and made sacrifices — lambs, geese, chickens (all in all 800 geese were eaten) — and fed their gods.

The festive meal — beer in cans and plastic glasses in Velsk and piles of geese-chickens and bread, a line of cauldrons in Kukmar. People — a child with a violet balloon, a girl wearing a green kerchief in the town, a woman holding a live white goose, an old lady wearing a red kerchief, a camouflaged guy in the village. And all this, like it always happens in Chilikov’s works, is moving and stirring: people walk about, pray, smile and look right into the camera — and from there at the viewer. And the merry-making, which on previous occasions Chilikov had to provoke or create himself, in this case was originally expected to happen — on those calendar holidays.

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