May | 2017 | It's all about photography

As a task for my school exam, I’ve decided to dedicate this documental project to immigrants and their studies in a country that’s new for them. Getting settled in a new place a new place, immigrants should attend language courses, in order to learn the language and to get assimilated into the society as well as to communicate with natives, to lead an ordinary working life and just to be sure in the future.
The idea of this project is close to me, to be honest – I left my homecountry approx. 4 years ago, and since then I’ve been living in Finland. I’ve started to learn finnish in Russia a year before moving, but as I moved and started to attend courses here, I understood that courses here and courses in Russia were different. Firstly, here, they are held by natives – all teachers are speaking finnish, and if you don’t know english it is going to be hard from the very beginning. Secondly, there are members of different cultures and this could make studies even more enjoyable. Learning can be tough though, especially with grammar, as you need first of all to be concentrated, and to keep in mind so many things, so many rules, which even finns don’t really know how to explain. Well, some of the whole bunch of rules. But still this education requires a lot of independent work – everything is concentrated around student’s motivation.

So, I wanted to picture new faces, at their very beginning of learning that language, which can really be considered as one of the most difficult in the world, their emotions, their feelings, their school days, their activities that help them to involve the use of finnish language, learning methods, the way they interract with each other and their teachers. So everything that is connected with their studies.

P.S.
Video connected with this project could be viewed Here

Special thanks to my former teacher Tiia Neuvonen, who has helped me to choose this wonderful group of students; to Elina Kiviranta for letting me into the backstage of a school life; to Liina Ernesaks for speaking some russian to me and for the perfect german music; to Hanna Kurkaa-Kaljunen and Henna Mutanen for letting me into the kitchen; to Bilal Falih for assisting me in the interview and translating for me and Fahad; and to all of the students from this group! Wishing them all good luck in learning finnish and I know, they will definitely manage it!

101

27.08.2016 Gramofon Fest, Pannuhuone, Kuopio
9.05.2017 Maxim restaurant, Kuopio

I like so much when suddenly, by chance you are able to learn, to meet, to dive into something new. This happened again during summer of 2016, when after several weeks of living in this new city, my friends suggested to visit Gramofon Fest to listen some music. And actually, I was starving without concerts, so the decision seemed to be obvious.

And we came here, and there were two bands playing, completely different bands with completely different music. But it was fun, it was the first gig shot here by me and this one I consider to be the crucial point in my whole carrier as a photographer. Since then I realized that I made a huge step forward towards my dream of being concert photographer, and that was fantastic.

Shot them a little bit more and still hope to be able to attend their next gigs, if there will be some.