Fyodor Savintsev has a background in photojournalism and has worked with such agencies as Agence France Press, the Associated Press, TIME, the New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Forbes, Newsweek, GEO Russia, Russian Reporter, Esquire. He was also the chief photographer for ITAR-TASS, the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide.
Since 2011, he is more focused on his own projects rather than working for someone and one of them is capturing old dachas in Russia. Fyodor told the European Heritage Tribune (EHT) how it all started. It’s actually not an old project. Due to the pandemic, Fyodor temporarily moved to his parents’ dacha and the childhood nostalgia prompted him to investigate dacha architecture.
Bored Panda reached out to Fyodor and he told us about how he created the project, “At first, I made a big project about the vernacular architecture of garden houses "6 acres" in the Arkhangelsk region. I was inspired by the process of painting unusual houses. Returning to the Moscow region, I began to explore the old country villages and found a lot of houses with unusual architecture, I began to catalog them, they were included in the project "Kratovsky dachas", which was exhibited at the end of the summer at the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture.”
We were also curious how he finds the dachas and turns out, he just simply travels a lot and during those travels, he comes across a lot of old cottages. The ones that attract him the most are “pre-revolutionary architecture that are elegant houses with a well-thought-out layout and decor aesthetics.”
We asked him if he has a dacha that is his favorite and he answered that he really likes all the cottages he photographs. But if he had to choose, he said that “there is one house from Arkhangelsk that evokes very abstract feelings, and there is another old dacha that was designed by the architect Vashkov, he was a student of the artist Vasnetsov, there are many symbols and signs in the house. Such a mixture of modern and Russian style.”
What is so fascinating about old houses in rural areas, you would think? For Fyodor, the most surprising thing about seeing those beautiful cottages that can be up to a century old is that “very little time has passed, about 100 years, but people have lost their sense of beauty, stopped decorating their homes, although it has always been customary. Architecture has gone from elegance to utilitarianism.”
People can take from these photos whatever they want but artists often have their own intentions and Fyodor explained what are his: “I really want people to start getting inspired, I have collected a large collection of houses for them. These are examples to follow because many people live in their homes all their lives, so why can't it be done beautifully. I also know many examples when my photos and stories inspired people to buy old houses and restore them.”
What was your first reaction when you saw these photos? Comment which of these would you love to live in and upvote the photos that made you really appreciate the beauty of the architecture. And if you would like to see more similar photographs or see what other things Fyodor is up to, you can follow him on Instagram @fsavintsev.
