Vladimir Mashatin: 20 years will pass and it will be madly interesting

Vladimir Mashatin is, among other things, one of the authors of “Noviye Izvestiya” column “Objective history”. I read his publications and like them. I told Vladimir about it and was surprised when he said: “I’m illiterate as far as texts are concerned, I’m lost, I don’t know how to put sentences together. But I know that details are always interesting. And I’m a photographic nerd. I can’t make portraits. I’m asking Tolya Morkovkin. My favorite line: “Twenty years from now, it will all be insanely interesting. I myself am already a part of history..

Vladimir Mashatin, American photojournalist. Lives in Boston. Works at the newspaper “New Izvestia.

I came into photography from architecture. Certified Architect MARKhI . I studied in the same group as Andrei Makarevich. After graduation he worked at GIPROVUZ 1976-1979 . Graduated from the Journalism Institute at the House of Journalists 1978-1979 . I cooperated with the journals “Nature” USSR Academy of Sciences , “Technics of Youth”, “Rural Youth”, “Modelist-constructor”, “Kvant”, etc.

In 1979, I joined the staff of Pionerskaya Pravda. Before that, I worked freelance for Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. Until 1991 he was a staff photo correspondent for the magazine “Soviet Union. At that time Sergey Kivrin, Andrey Golovanov, Anatoly Khrupov, Sergey Lidov, Victor Reznik, Victor Ruykovich, Dmitry Azarov and others worked as photo editors in the magazine.

In 1991 came to Ogonyok. In 1993, I went to the newspaper Izvestia. Was a staff photographer for the EPA in 1996 to 1997, and then joined Noviye Izvestiya, America’s first daily color newspaper, as head of its photo service in September 1997.

Awarded the Order of Personal Courage.

Giprowse, zelma and cowboy boot

– How did you get into photography??

– After high school, I went to the Architectural Institute. I studied in the same group as Andrei Makarevich. I’ve got a picture somewhere of him napping at a lecture.

– Why didn’t you become an architect??

– I became an architect. And I’ve been one for three years. I graduated with honors from MARKhI and I chose a place to work near my home: GIPROVUZ on Lyusinovskaya Street, New York. I was a right young man, I didn’t listen to the “Time Machine”, I knew for sure that I would never change my profession and I would always be an architect. But three years later, I quit architecture.

1. Antarctica

GIPROVUZ was an institute that designed research centers, institutes, universities. All over the Soviet Union and fraternal countries. Stamping boxes. I was cherished as a creative specialist. I used to make layouts for those projects that had fresh new ideas.

My architectural supervisor Yuri Ivanovich Tsyganov once said: “Work for three years and get out of architecture. Take the camera, and you’ll see the whole world”. He advised me to look at the best photographs on the stands, in newspapers and magazines. Taught how to shoot. Taught me to see. He took beautiful pictures of architectural landscapes. He showed and explained the peculiarities of architectural photography. It also taught me how to print photographs, make solutions, develop film. He taught me the culture of the press. He used to cover for me in the institute when I was running out to take pictures. I hung my jacket on the back of my chair and put a glass of tea on the table, my colleague occasionally filled it with hot water, creating an illusion that I was there and had just left. At the height of my “photographic personality,” my day at the Architectural Institute began with an early morning trip to the train station closest to the location and placing a bag full of equipment in the locker. Then he walked lightly to the institute. I left the institute an hour before my scheduled time, went to the train station, picked up my bag and headed for the shoot. After shooting, I’d go to the train station again, but the one closer to home, and return to GIPROVUZ.

I remember Dean Reed came to New York, I shot him. Took a lot of pictures. I showed it to Yuri Ivanovich, and he told me: “You didn’t shoot anything. I took a lot of portraits of Dean Reed and his cowboy boot at the end. Yuri Ivanovich praised the boot shot. Said this one’s interesting, everything else is Dean Reed like Dean Reed, the same as everybody else.

Following Tsyganov’s advice, I got accepted into the Institute for Journalistic Skills at the Journalists’ House. Two-year courses, every two weeks. There were classes all day long, led by bild editors from the APN and photographers. Our class was taught by Dmitry Vozdvizhensky and Vsevolod Tarasevich. To get in, I had to pass the exam with the famous George Zelma.

I was very nervous about this exam. I didn’t know what to carry or what to show. A business trip to Tashkent happened. The first thing I did was run to the bazaar and shoot some shit. Lots of shots of Uzbek boys holding melons. The filming turned out to be dumb and amateurish. But I tried. Asked the boys to pose for me both ways. There might have been a shot in between productions, but I missed it. Printed the boys with the melons and posted it to Zelma. He immediately recognized the Alai bazaar and remembered his childhood Georgy Zelma is from Tashkent . – Editor. , was touched, and I was accepted with a whistle.

2. Baku. 1990

3. Baku. 1990

I started getting praise already at the third class. I was winning with the way I organized my work: I glued photos to flatbeds and put the story in a certain order. The way it would look in a magazine. The entry shot, the opening shot, the closing shot. The photographers did not like me, they thought I was showing off. The card is the main thing, why bother with it, they thought. The main thing is to get a good card. But I thought that was not enough and that a good card should be well designed and presented.

Vsevolod Tarasevich lectured and debriefed us. I remembered his advice: You should never have a social life on the set. When you come to shoot, shoot and be in tune with the subject. There are no other photographers. There’s you and your subject. You come to a rally, you film the rally and think only about it. Tarasiewicz’s second commandment: change your point, don’t go where everyone else is going. My most memorable experience was meeting with the young Vyatkin. He had just returned from Vietnam and told me that there are situations when you can’t shoot the story you see. I didn’t really understand it then, but later I often recalled his words. I remember Isaac Tunkel, he came to us only once. Sage. He watched our work. Long and attentive. Then he said: “You know, you didn’t surprise me. Nothing,” he got up and left.

I remember from architecture school: the more limitations on the job, the more interesting it is to do it. Shouldn’t be afraid to do some small things. It was interesting for me to enter journalism based on architectural principles. I entered the profession from a different angle, and I liked the profession. Enjoyed life in all its manifestations.

Crayfish, telescope, deadline and half a frame

At GIPROVUZ I was a Komsomol activist, and every six months I took a trip abroad to a socialist country. The GDR was the first foreign country I ever went to. I had a machine and lots of slide film. I shot everything in the frame, anything I could get my hands on, I just couldn’t stop. It was important for me to tell my friends about everything I saw.

At first I shot architecture, and I hated people who got in the way of my shooting architecture. I waited for people to leave. Later, as a journalist, I was always waiting for people to come into the frame. Journalistic photography always requires the presence of a person. Though it doesn’t have to be. But I always expect a human presence in the frame: a man, a woman with a baby carriage, a dog, a kitty, a bird. There’s so much beauty in the world, I want to shoot everything. The question is why?

In the spring of 1979, I gave up architecture and wanted to work as a photo reporter for Moskovsky Komsomolets. For a few months, I had already been doing freelance work for the Sport Department, shooting various sports-related subjects for the newspaper. Editor-in-chief Lev Gushchin agreed to hire me part-time. But the newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda, where I worked as a freelance graphic artist for about a year, beat out Moskovsky Komsomolets by offering me a full-time job as a photojournalist and a full-time.

5. The All-Union Military Sports Game “Zarnitsa

Few people know that the author of “Zarnitsa” was Zoya Krotova, a counselor from a village school in the Perm Region. From year to year, in the month of February of the “war” it used to organize the traditional review of marching and singing. So in the winter of 1964 Zoya decided that on February 23rd the whole school would become… the army. Teachers were designated as military leaders and students were designated as pilots, sailors and tankers. And one class was enrolled as a partisan. The school had neither straight A’s nor F’s – the classes were filled with all the petty officers and privates. All this was interesting and unusual, and the war game very quickly went beyond the limits of the Perm village school.

Pionerskaya Pravda had a larger circulation than Pravda. The Pioneer staff hired me with a probationary period. My first assignment: The last class before my summer vacation at school. I went to the Ternopil region of Ukraine, tucking A-2 film into the Praktika. Went to a country school. I was welcomed, organized many days of noble treats, excursions, crayfishing, relaxing on the bank of a river. I needed a shot of the teacher and kids walking through a blooming garden, and then the kids were looking through a telescope.

No matter what, in broad daylight. I was told it was going to be. I kept on resting in anticipation. But I didn’t know there was a deadline on the paper. I lost my bearings in time. Back in New York and straight to the newsroom. I left my camera at home. I came to the editorial office to tell them how great my business trip was. It turned out that at 5 p.m. the issue went to the printer and my topic was in the issue, and the newspaper had no back-up material. For some reason I didn’t want to talk about crayfish and resting on the river.

I rushed home for the film, then back to the editorial office to have it developed. I was in terror. The camera shutter broke, and everything was shot half a frame at a time. I frantically picked out stories from the slices and typed. I was lucky: the shot of the pioneers walking among the cherry blossoms came out almost completely, only the teacher was “cut off. A number came out with my picture on it. But they warned me that I had only one chance left, if I didn’t make it, they’d kick me out. I did well with the second shoot. But it was explained to me that one should not shoot the same way as everyone else. From the fourth shooting – I shot street basketball teams – I brought something the editors liked. I stood the test.

7. Chechnya.

First Chechen War

8. Budennovsk. June, 1995

9. Chechnya.

First Chechen war

Hot spots and Kashpirovsky’s suitcase

– For a long time your name was attached to the term “extreme journalism” and your name was mentioned in the collection “Extreme Photojournalism” by Yuri Romanov.

– Yeah, it’s kind of undeserved. Probably for the company and the fact that we met with the author in all the “hot spots. But unlike the others, I didn’t show any heroism. I’m basically a coward. It hurts terribly when a bullet goes in you. You can’t take everything off.

– Let’s see what “hot spots” you’ve been in?

– Yes, practically all of them. Someone, almost Yury Romanov, said: “You have to shoot the war in a smart way: before the fight and after the fight, and during the fight you have to sit down and keep your head down. You can shoot the war in such a way that everyone will cry, but you shouldn’t run under the bullets. Andrei Solovyov had other principles: we had to run under the bullets, shoot, hide and run again. I’ve been in situations where bullets were whizzing over my head, but I didn’t get in front of them on purpose.

January 1996. Chechnya. I lived with snipers. I have always remembered their words: in war you should not be different from others, any difference is bait for a sniper. A sniper shoots first at someone who is at least somewhat different. In war, for example, you can’t take a picture of a tank column from behind the bushes with a TV set. You have to come out and show me that you’re holding a camera.

In any “hot spot” we shot from both sides of the conflict. Going from one village to another, running in front of bullets. That was in Nagorno-Karabakh, that was in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Fergana. And everything was incomprehensible. There they talk about friendship and love, and on the other side they talk about friendship and love. That’s how bloody the collapse of the Soviet Union was. I often worked with the Emergency Situations Ministry, filming disasters, earthquakes, explosions, etc. On Kashirka I was the first to arrive: a pile of houses and silence. The bombing in Tushino at the rock festival. I managed to run and shoot, and then they took me out of the fence. When Dubrovka happened, I was already in charge. I couldn’t go myself, so I sent Dima Khrupov and advised him to make a deal with the tenants and to film from the window.

In 1993, during the October putsch, I had to stop filming and run to the newsroom to make it to Izvestia without being detained by one of the parties. We prevented then World War III: paratroopers mistook the buildings for the White House and started shooting at the American Embassy instead, we guided them.

I arrived late to Budennovsk. There were photojournalists sitting under all the fences – all the press I knew. They weren’t allowed anywhere. Everyone was waiting for developments. The first attempt to storm the building was made. There was no information, it was all just gossip. Suddenly it turned out that Basayev had asked a group of journalists to go to the hospital to give a press conference. He demanded representatives from five international channels and one photographer. I don’t remember the tricks I pulled, but I ended up on that list. On the way I added an unrecorded seventh – Valera Yakov. When the press conference was over, Valera said: “I’m staying.”. I left him my video camera.

The press conference was on the second floor of the building. I “missed.”. It’s dark, you can’t see anything. I went to the third and fourth floor and ran down the corridors, blowing flares in all directions. I was taken by the Basayevites, but they let me go. The explanation that it was dark and I was looking for the room where the press conference was taking place helped, so I lit up the space with a flash to understand the direction. They took me to the press conference. Twenty hostages were released with us afterwards. I was filming the gun-wielding militant letting the hostages go, and then I said to him, “You didn’t have time to shoot, you can let some more hostages go and I’ll take a photo of you in front of them?”. The militant let another dozen hostages go in exchange for the card. Then we’re walking in the dark with Kashpirovsky and he says: “You see, my setup worked, he’s released more hostages than he’d promised.

Kashpirovsky went to the hospital before the journalists, like a deputy. His job was to instruct Basayev to release the hostages. On our way to the press conference we were to take Kaspirovskiy’s suitcase and his things to the hospital. When we went to the hospital, we carried a stretcher with bread, medicine, a suitcase, and the psychic’s things. We were stopped many times, put face down, checked and then let go.

4. Georgia’s first president Zviad Gamsakhurdia. 1991

Gamsakhurdia’s Eye and Ogonyok

– How did you get into “Ogonyok”??

– My last photo in the Soviet Union magazine didn’t come out. The Union collapsed and the magazine died with it. 1991. Then Misharin, the editor-in-chief, appeared, and the magazine was called Resurrection. I, a militant atheist, left for Ogonyok when the magazine became biased toward Orthodoxy.

Then there was a putsch, Korotich was fired, Lev Gushchin came to take away the certificate signed by Korotich and gave me a new one signed by himself. I first went to Ogonyok in 1990. It was January. Black January 1990. I returned from Baku to the editorial office of Soviet Union, and the editor-in-chief, after seeing my shoot, said that it could not be. Our troops were moving along the main avenue and shooting in all directions. A lot of people died then. I filmed everything. Valery Yakov wrote a text. I took the video and the text to “Ogonyok” magazine. Koposov asked to sign the photos with my name but I could not: I used to work at the “Soviet Union”. The material from Baku was published and Korotich invited me to “Ogonyok”. Once at the briefing I heard Lenya Radzikhovsky say: “Nothing interesting in this issue, except Mashatin’s photos”. It was a photo shoot from Georgia. I went to film Gamsakhurdia.

I had a hard time at Ogonyok: I couldn’t find a writer to match me and soon left for Izvestia.

The staging and the reaction to the press

– There was a lot of staged shooting, for example in Chechnya?

– No, we all absorbed Sasha Zemlyanichenko’s precepts and his disdain for staged photography. But it depends on what you consider staging? Let’s take the rally at which the notorious Stalinist baba Nina always stands with a placard. The agency expects me to make an emotional photo, with a fist and a scream. And she’s just standing there. And to get an emotional card, you had to piss her off, provoke her.

– So you staged this picture..

– Well, I’m a piece of history, just like that baba Nina. This is all history. I like my work as much as I like Facebook as a place for jokes and provocation. One of the military journalist’s jokes: “And the tears of mothers were filmed?”. It seems to me that in every war there are specially trained women who, at the sight of a photojournalist, start tearing their hair out and crying. They look very good in the frame. Why did I come to that conclusion?? And here’s why: more than once, I have seen women sitting quietly, I can see it from afar. As soon as we approach, the screaming and sobbing starts.

– This is a reaction to the press.

– Yes, they know they’re going to take it off. The grief of mothers, the tears of mothers. Staging arises where there’s nothing to shoot, but it’s necessary to shoot. But if there’s action and something to shoot, I wouldn’t think of wasting my time with staged productions. I love to make jokes on set, but I think you should shoot what’s really going on, not just reactions to the press.

– Why did you quit Izvestia??

– I left Izvestia to join the EPA as a staff photographer before that I had been stringing for it for a long time. I left the YPA in 1997 to join Igor Golembiovsky’s team at Novaya Izvestiya. We were financed by Berezovsky. The first color illustrated daily newspaper. They gave a lot of money – more than Izvestia and more than the EPA. That’s when I took Natasha, my wife, as editor-in-chief. I needed a slave, a person who would work with me around the clock. Nothing happened. I had to create and fill the archive, work with agencies, and recruit staff. Igor Golembiovsky talked me out of it: you can’t work with your wife. But I insisted, and I didn’t regret it. Only my wife could understand me in this situation. And then the default. Berezovsky’s money was managed by Oleg Mitvol. He cut our salaries three times, didn’t pay us for three months, canceled our photographers’ remuneration and set up a distribution business on our basis.

6. Samantha Smith. Artek. 1983

Big white bows turned out to be Samantha’s weak spot. She never wore them in America. For the right to tie Samantha’s bow, Soviet pioneer girls fought hard and signed up for days on end.

10. Princess Diana in America. June 1995

11. Arnold Schwarzenegger. New York. 1988

Heavyweight Yuri Vlasov and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Vlasov was his idol since he was 14 years old, thanks to him Arnold took up weightlifting and then athletic gymnastics seriously.

New time, new people, new approach

– How did you get to Boston??

– My daughter’s an athlete. She went to Boston when she was 17 and stayed there. Then we moved in with her too, so she wouldn’t be alone. My wife is a heroic girl: she was awarded the Order for Personal Courage – №1 for the rescue of schoolchildren, terrorist hostages in Vladikavkaz. So we have two Orders of Courage in our family: Natasha received them in 1988, and I received them in 1993. Our daughter Maia is a rhythmic gymnast and a CSKA athlete. Competitions all the time in America and abroad, training camps, studies – in between training sessions. The first time we went to America as a family. And our American journalist friends dragged us to the gym. Maya showed what she could do and was invited to work as a trainer. She was given a work visa with the right to change employers. We’ve been in America for three years now.

– How do you see the situation in photojournalism??

– I am not an expert, I can only judge from my own bell tower, based on my own selfish interests. I’ve seen that since 2008, agency buying has been dropping precipitously. Starting from June 1 the state subsidy to American Post will be canceled, which will lead to an increase in the price of subscriptions, even fewer subscribers, the print run will fall, many newspapers will close down, and, first of all, the paper press will shrink. Everything goes on the Internet, but rates are different there, and photojournalists earn less and less. Bloggers appeared with soapboxes and phones. They have very different principles and approach. Filmed can be anything, the main thing – the speed, the rapidity of information on the Internet, on social networks. This is a new breed of people.

The presentation of information in publications has changed. I watch the “Boston Globe,” there’s maybe two shots of journalism per issue. Mostly group shots where everyone is smiling and looking at the lens. It seems to me that everything happens naturally. Everything has to change and move somewhere. There’s no point in grieving and suffering here, you need to adapt and change for yourself. Everyone shoots nowadays. At an event, we see people raise their hands with their iPhones and smartphones and take pictures. But somehow I think that the interest in journalistic photography will not disappear. We see differently, we shoot differently. Capturing the moment, watching the moment, the psychology of relationships. I hope this is still interesting to people.