Igor Starkov is 29 and from St. Petersburg.
MOSSLESS: What’s the story behind this boy? What made his reaquaintance so important to you?
IGOR STARKOV: This boy is my son. I deliberately haven’t mentioned that in my text. The situation is that I began to write captions when just’ve scanned images. And stopped with an image depicting a wall. “The wall typical for Crimea, which for a long time…” And I left this. Let it be some understatement. It’s not reportage story. Sure, I could write about arguing with his mother seven years ago and the same things… But why? He and his big world - it’s a point of this story.
ML: What’s happened since then between you and Dima?
IS: This story was made just about four weeks ago. Now we are communicating through skype. I am in St. Petersburg and he is standing in Crimea.
ML: What do you think is your best photo?
IS: My favourite work is undoubtedly this image.
ML: I’m not too familiar with Russian photographers. Do you have any favourites that you could expose me to?
IS: Alnis Stakle. I suppose I like his works more than any others’. He is from Latvia, former republic of USSR. And Rena Effendi, from Azerbaijan. We all speak with the same language and live in a common cultural space. From young photographers, Elena Chernyak from St. Petersburg. Her work is really excellent. She is just 20 years old.
