“Mezen: By Sky’s Edge” is a visual elegy to the disappearing rural life along the Mezen River in northern Russia — a place where time seems suspended between a distant past and an unreachable future. With a poetic and immersive approach, Emil Gataullin captures the quiet persistence of over 50 remote villages scattered along the banks of this icy river, where traditions endure against the backdrop of economic collapse, geographic isolation, and cultural fading. Inspired by Viktor Popkov’s painting series The Widows of Mezen, Gataullin set out to find the truth behind the brushstrokes. What he discovered was not just visual confirmation, but something deeper: a world abandoned by progress yet rich with memory and meaning. Here, people live as their ancestors once did — baking, fishing, surviving — while the present hovers far away, like a shimmering illusion on a TV screen. With Mezen: By Sky’s Edge, Gataullin creates not only a record of what remains, but a deeply human meditation on impermanence, resilience, and the fading edges of a forgotten world.Exclusive limited edition
Published by Eyeshot, 2025 Hardcover, 22×24 cm 128 pages Designed and made in Italy Edited by Marco Savarese Introduction by Lucrezia Bonarota
