COUNTING THE CZARS, the Imperialists, the Fascists, the Bolsheviks, and post-Cold War leaders like KGB-man Vladimir Putin—Russia has gone through more than its fair share of societal shifts.
But one thing has remained constant throughout the modern history of the world’s largest country: a divide between rural and urban, rich and poor. An area that covers a ninth of the earth’s surface and supports the world’s ninth-largest population is also home to 62 of the world’s billionaires, one of whom is the mayor of Moscow’s wife, Yelena Baturina, the third-richest woman in the world.
Images of sullen, babushka-wrapped ladies waiting in wintry bread lines are long gone, yet Moscow remains one of the most expensive cities in the world. For those who would have attended Moscow’s Millionaire Fair in October, the capital’s women are more likely to be tending lap dogs, shopping for jewellery, or for some, craning their necks on a stage, stripping for the entertainment of Russia’s elite.
Whether it’s being connected enough to profit from selling off state assets after Perestroika, or happening to control a few natural gas lines capable of holding Europe for ransom, Russia’s rich are getting richer. The desires of men may come at great expense, but in the Moscow underworld, it’s still the mainstays of girls and booze that keep men happy, it’s just prohibitively costly to enter this world. One photographer managed it.
Antonin Kratochvil takes us on a journey into a sphere of decadent sensuality—a dark, dingy, salacious combination of nudity, lust and raw sexual power. It is also a view into the emptiness lurking beneath the atmosphere of fervent sexuality.