Russian traditional interiors discovered in the provinces

The series is named after the real Russian town of Mtsensk in the Oryol region (311 km south-west of Moscow), the location of the mythical world created by Russian author Nikolai Leskov.

She captured the interiors of the mythical town of Mtsensk.

Photographer Anastasia Tsayder travelled in provincial Russia for three years, visiting villages in the Kursk region.

“For me the provinces represent a hidden image, as exemplified by the interiors of southern Russia,” says photographer Anastasia Tsayder.

The timeless objects in the photos are uprooted from their usual locale and moved to a mythical town called Mtsensk.

In the novel Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1864), the author tells the story of the terrible atrocities committed by Katerina Izmailova, the wife of a merchant.

Inhabitants of Russian cities are surrounded by interiors from the previous century and the photos depict the past.

She kills three people, evoking Shakespeare’s tragedy in a rural Russian setting.

As a result, the places depicted in the illustrations represent a town that is half fiction, half real.