AUK NR. 8

Snizhne in the Ukrainian Donets Basin. The majority of the coal mines of this erstwhile showcase industrial region having long closed down, many locals now mine the coal illegally by hand. Among the unemployed persons, pensioners and children to be found searching disused mines, abandoned houses and in their own gardens are the Sikhanovs, three youths forced to live alone due to their parents’ alcoholism.

Insights into the everyday life of a region in which the presence of the state generally restricts itself to the arbitrariness of a corrupt police force. A perilous, yet adventuresome life on the margins of subsistence.