Smithsonian magazine's 22nd Annual Photo Contest | Made possible through the support of MPB.com

17th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest People
Portrait of Margo, internally displaced ukrainian girl from Crimea

I started to shoot portraits of Crimea residents that were forced to leave their homes and move to Ukraine. All of them are activists that were fighting for Ukraine and refused to have Russian citizenship. It was dangerous for them to stay in Crimea when Russian troops invaded. Repressions of activists against Russian authorities started immediately. We have now hundreds of political prisoners in Russian jails. My project is about Internally displaced people from Crimea that have been living now for 5 years in Puscha-Vodytsya, suburb of Kyiv. They live in old soviet sanatorium, that Ukrainian authorities gave them as temporary shelter. Now this is the only home they have. They changed their apartments by the Black Sea and big private houses for small incommodious rooms that are bedrooms and kitchens at the same time.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 03.2019
Date Uploaded: 09.2019
Photo Location: Kyiv, Ukraine
Camera: NIKON D610
Copyright: © Oleksandra Zborovska