Calamity Islands — Project Press Kit | Oleg Klimov
Sakhalin and the Kurils –
terra incognita of a brutal Russian Empire
Press kit summary: Calamity Islands is a documentary photobook by Oleg Klimov about Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands—Russia’s far-eastern island edge shaped by extraction, militarised geography, and historical isolation. The book combines contemporary and archival photographs with local voices and research, examining the continuity between the hard-labour colony of the past and the present-day logic of shift work and resource economies.
The project uses quotations from Chekhov’s Sakhalin Island and draws on materials from museum and archival collections, including the Library of Congress, alongside regional sources.
Rather than a travel narrative, Calamity Islands is a visual anthropology of an “island system”: how people live when the mainland treats the periphery as a warehouse of fish, oil and gas—and how everyday life adapts, resists, or simply survives.
Key facts (Project)
- Geography: Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, the Russian Far East
- Years photographed: 2007–2016
- Format: photobook / documentary series
- Materials: contemporary + archival photography; testimonies; research materials
- Research references: Chekhov’s Sakhalin Island; archival and museum sources incl. Library of Congress (USA)
- Availability: editorial assignments, licensing, exhibitions, print sales
- Author: Oleg Klimov
Book details
- Published: December 2022
- ISBN: 978-5-9901464-8-2
- UDC: 77(084.1)
- BBK: 85.16
- DOI: 10.26202/ywwk-f257
Links
Call to action
View and purchase the Calamity Islands photobook.
Independent documentary photography rarely survives in today’s media environment. Publishing books is not a commercial strategy — it is a necessity.
— Oleg Klimov