No, I don’t think I want to.
For me, the teenage period was the most difficult part of my life. While working on the project, I began to feel for a mirror to my past in each of my characters. Vulnerable rebellion, when you are no longer a child, but those who feel superior and more important do not really count with you yet. The time when you are “obliged” to determine your future and can do a lot of irreparable things. It’s time to grow up and make important decisions that you’re not always ready for. When you’re a teenager, you want to try to keep the carefree time slipping away as long as possible. Pain, fear, love, friends, mistakes… many of these were shared with me by the heroes of my photo project.
Anya, 17 y.o.
When all this nonsense with the coronavirus started, I felt very bad and I wanted some stability. Almost every day, even when the playgrounds were closed, I started going out and swinging on the swing. I still do it: I just listen to music and think. It helps me a lot to concentrate and solve some problems.
Do I want to become an adult? No, I don’t think I want to. I want to gain independence, but I am afraid of responsibility.
If I become an adult, then my friends will become adults, and they will have problems that they have to solve. Helping to choose sneakers is not the same as helping to choose which mortgage to take out in a bank. An adult makes decisions about everything, and it’s always scary. 16-17 years is the most pleasant age for me, I like to live it.
Andrey, 16 y.o.
I was sent to boxing at the age of seven. I sparred three times every week. My aggression and irascibility appeared, probably, because of this. I studied until I was fourteen, then I went to the gym. Now I’m back to boxing. I have a lot of mental problems, I need to pour out my pain somewhere, so I beat up a pear or people who meaningfully go to training.
I’m scared of people and their actions. It’s like the fear of the dark. You are not afraid of the dark, you are afraid of what is hidden in the darkness. I am afraid of people’s actions, such as violence — mental and physical. If it’s mental, then I’m not defending myself and I’m not trying to offend in some way in response. In this regard, I am quite a humble person. Physical violence makes me want to fight. It is difficult to escape or hide from physical violence, so it is better to hit back. If I hit back, then I will be sure that I am not the only one who will get a hat.
Masha, 16 y.o.
In a sense, my grandmother replaced my mother. It’s no one’s fault, and I’m even glad that my grandparents brought me up, and only then I moved to my mom. When my grandmother died, I didn’t get out of bed for weeks and cried almost all the time.
Death scares me not somehow that I will survive, but somehow that I will testify. After my grandmother’s death, I’m even more afraid of this. You sit and smile at a person, and the next day he is gone and there is no one to smile at.
Olympus superzoom 160 is a camera on which I have been trying for a year to capture as many moments as 36 frames from each reel of film will allow. After Grandma’s death, it became even more necessary. Probably not only to me, but also to the people who surround me. At least, there will be something to reflect on, laugh and cry about — in ten, twenty years.
Dmitry, 16 y.o.
It is necessary to gradually integrate into life. It is necessary to work, the money appears for a reason. I have already worked, and the work experience was so difficult.
We went to work at night, two hours from Moscow by train. Five bridges together with a friend were cleaned of snow. They broke into the stones every two meters. And the snow was still wet. We arrived at midnight, there is nowhere to sit and warm up. They cleaned it, and they told us: “You’re going to two more bridges.” We said we wouldn’t clean anymore and went home. As a result, they threw off two thousand to me, but not to a friend — they said that they had not worked.
When you’re little, you went out to play football, bought a Coca-Cola, you sit, you chew crackers, there are no problems at all. And now my life is average between “sitting and eating crackers” and solving problems.
And so in general I dream of helping people somehow. That’s why I joined the rescuers — to help people. I want to do good, because it’s a very pleasant feeling to be thanked for your kindness.
Lena, 16 y.o.
I have a biological father, but I don’t consider him a dad and I don’t have any feelings for him as a parent, because he left my mom when she was still pregnant with me. Almost from my birth, my mom had a boyfriend, and I consider him and call him dad. He raised me and my sisters, and later my younger sister and brother also appeared.
He did a lot of good things, but he also beat us for various reasons and constantly exerted psychological pressure. Remembering the times when he lived with us, I can’t believe what happened, because such an atrocity seems to me simply unreal. He brought my mother to a terrible state, because of which she could not part with him for a long time, because she was economically dependent, there would be five mouths left on her shoulders that needed to be fed. At the end of the sixth grade, Mom finally decided and kicked him out of the house. Because of this event, my life was really divided into before and after, because I understand what hell used to be, especially for the child’s psyche.
I would like to be a child again, but even if I go back to the past, I will not be able to be one, because I have had to be an adult for myself for a long time.
Alisa, 16 y.o.
This place reminds me of last summer, when my friend and I took a meal at KFC and went to the park on this bench to see off the sunset. Here we talked about everything, took pictures and enjoyed the view. Then I came here with a young man.
I study at a special school, I graduated from the 10th grade. The school specializes in the treatment of children with poor health. In the future I want to become a psychologist. I really want to help people, because I myself am a person who needs psychological help. I have a lot of worries about life, friends, family, and most of all about health. I dream that no one will ever get sick.
Anton, 16 y.o.
I had a lot of vivid memories, but it is difficult to single out one thing. Maybe this is the first kiss. It was a year ago, I was in love… and now — we still have a relationship. I liked her for a long time, and I was looking for the right moment when we were going with friends. I didn’t understand how it happened. It was excellent.
I took a redbull cover on a chain with me for the shoot. When we first started communicating with Anya, I saw such a thing on her and we decided that it would be something we had in common. Then we got the halves of the heart on a magnet.
Sonya, 16 y.o.
I study at a school for children with disabilities. This is a rehabilitation center. My grandmother worked there and I went there to study, and then it turned out that I had a curvature of the spine and I had to stay there.
I want people to be kind to each other. A lot of teenagers face bullying. Just at our school there are children with special needs, and there are teenagers who want to be cooler by belittling them. I understand now that these people tried to hide their problems through name-calling.
I have a friend who was called names because she did not fit the standards of people. Because of this, she was hurting herself because she didn’t know how to deal with bullying. It made her feel better.
For some reason, adults do not attach importance to the problems of children. They say: “What problems, here I have blockages at work…”. It turns out that adults devalue the importance of the situation. And it’s like a snowball: it will only get worse in the future.
Arina, 14 y.o.