Strangers Next Door

• Photographer
  Nadezhda Ermakova
• Prizes
  Bronze in People/Portrait

About two thousand foreign students enter Tambov universities annually. Most of them are from African countries because Russian diploma in African countries is considered to be very prestigious and gives a great advantage when applying for a job. But while trying to assimilate and establish contacts with the locals, most of them meet with a strong resistance. They are very much worried about this and say they imagined the Russians to be more open-minded. I’ve tried to enter their environment and to get to know them and to find out how they differ from the locals of an provincial Russian city.