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It smells of smoke at home

Aliona Kardash
When I think of home, I think of the feeling when the frost is so cold at minus 20 degrees that your nostrils freeze together while breathing. If there is no wind, you can smell the smoke from the burning wood stoves that everyone in Stepanovka uses for heating, because the endless Russian gas has not yet found its way to our village. The smoke means that you can‘t see any stars over Stepanovka, which is wonderful because everything is so muted, the colors, the sounds - cozier than anywhere else. - 20.12.22 Self-portrait in my children‘s room as an attempt to figure out, how does it feel to be back in a place of my childhood. Am I still belong to this bed, to this house, this country? - Tomsk, 11.01.23 The letter Z, which has become a symbol of Russian aggression in Ukraine, as a decoration outside the supermarket where my parents usually buy their groceries. - Tomsk, 29.12.22 A party at a club in Tomsk. DJs even plaid a couple of tracks in Ukrainian. By 2023, the the Russian state has managed to suppress public protests almost completely, even the mere playing of music in Ukrainian is perceived as civil disobedience. - Tomsk, 06.01.23 Once gold was washed in the Ushayka River, now the water in it barely reaches to the waist and the neighborhood residents are already happy to see it cleaned of old tires and rusty hardware. Just beyond the river, the forest begins, and right on the bank is our dacha. - Tomsk, 04.08.23 Grandma is resting after a walk. She never leaves the house alone, too afraid of falling or getting lost. When I first met her this time she hugged me tightly, cried, and said: „Alyonochka, I thought I would never see you again“. She had also packed a gift for me to take to Germany - my old baby towel, a gospel book, and her warm downy shawl. - Tomsk, 17.02.22 At the end of winter, there is so much snow in Tomsk that it starts to reach the window sill and seems to be squeezing the walls. - Tomsk, 05.02.22 A picture in the summer kitchen of my parents house is a copy of a drawing by the famous Russian-Jewish romantic painter Isaac Levitan. It‘s hard to call it a proper replica, it is a thin paper glued on canvas. The colors have faded in the sun, and the paper is peeling off. Nevertheless, I stood in front of it for a few minutes mesmerized, looking at this artifact from my childhood, wrapped in plastic ivy and covered in hoarfrost. Everything is frozen until spring, nothing is in the room but the frost. - Tomsk, 29.12.22 My niece, Masha, has been swimming in the pool for nearly an hour. The sun has almost set behind the roof of the house, and the heat of the day is gradually being replaced by the evening coolness. Masha‘s lips are turning blue, but she refuses to get out of the water. At times like this, she reminds me of myself. - Tomsk, 04.08.23 My sister Sanya is two years younger than me and lives a completely different life. She is a mother of two, I’m still about to get my Master’s degree. We rarely see each other, there has long been an unspoken consensus between us that we are too different to be friends. All the more important are these brief meetings in Siberia every three years. This time, in parting, she said to me, „You know, I‘m glad I have a sister. I‘ll miss you.“ I will too. - Tomsk, 05.08.23 Graves of Russian soldiers, who died in Ukraine, at the city cemetery near Tomsk. The city authorities allocated a separate section number 39 for the soldiers, which can be easily recognized by the waving flags of the various branches of the Russian army and Wagner unit. - Tomsk, 30.08.23 Granny stands at the gate of my parents‘ house. She is 94, she has lived in a small village all her life and moved to a one-room apartment in Tomsk five years ago. Granny loves her new home but this place reminds her of the past she is missing. - Tomsk, 02.09.23 My sister and her nine-year-old son. I have never once talked to her about the war. I don‘t know what she thinks about the future, I don‘t know what it‘s like to be a mother of a son in Russia nowdays. - Tomsk, 04.08.23 Banya is one of the most vivid experiences and rituals associated with home for me. The fogged window, the smell of birch brooms and the fir oil that my dad pours on the hot stones. I go outside, douse myself with a bucket of ice water and pour a cup of hot tea with currant leaves. Dusk, few mosquitoes and steam enveloping me in the cool August air. - Tomsk, 05.08.22 Since my grandma very rarely leaves the house, a TV is often her window to the world. The signal in the village she used to live was weak, so she was very happy when she moved to the city that she could now watch the Orthodox TV channel „Spas“ without any interference. Two years ago it showed mostly old Soviet movies, preaching and liturgies on Sundays and holidays. Now the special military operation has also gotten to grandma‘s „Spas“. - Tomsk, 12.01.23 My friend Tanya holds her two-year-old son in her arms. Most of our mutual friends left Russia after the war was declared, and mobilization took place. Tanya would have wanted to leave as well, especially in search of a better future for her son. But her husband can‘t travel abroad because of the debts, and Tanya won‘t go anywhere without him. - Tomsk, 31.08.23 The ice drift in Siberia is always a major event in spring and a topic for the news. Will the river free itself from the ice late or early? Will it overflow its banks? The whole city follows the ice flow via the surveillance cameras and comes to the banks to watch it, because when the ice crunches and cracks, the long winter ends. - Tomsk, 12.04.24 I took this picture of me with my parents and grandma on the porch just before I got on the bus to the airport. I love this Russian tradition of „sitting on the road.“. You all sit down together for a minute to think about what you leave behind. It was the last time I saw them. - Tomsk, 02.09.23
What remains of a home when one‘s own country becomes a perpetrator? Who do you become yourself when your own family suddenly feels like strangers?
Born in Russia the year before the collapse of the Soviet Union, I moved to Germany in 2019. I told my German friends a lot about this place, of which beyond stereotypes, hardly anyone knew anything. Since the beginning of the war, I doubt whether I truly understood what defined my homeland. It has turned into a collection of dusty memories, and I can no longer say if these memories ever corresponded to reality.
In the week after the war began, I wrote a letter to my parents but I never sent it. We’ve talked about the war once. They would say: about the special operation. My work “It smells of smoke at home” is a visual diary capturing the fading reality that, on the surface, seems to be the same, but it has deep wounds and scars when you look beneath. It’s my farewell to the place of childhood and my illusions.