Limbless Children, Moscow, 1993. These children, all from only two neighborhoods in Moscow, were born with missing forearms. Although no certain links can be drawn between their defects and Moscow’s bewildering mix of pollutants, the incidence of congenital deformities is higher here than in the rest of Russia.
Joseph Beuys #1 [Beuys Cradle and Hare], Near Kleve, Germany, 1978. Joseph Beuys with cradle and hare in Mehr near the Dassendonkshof.rn
Stalin, Blindfolded, Moscow, 1991. Blindfolded by a child, a statue of Stalin, most feared ruler of the communist era, sits amid other toppled effigies of party leaders now jumbled together in a Moscow park. To ardent believers in the glories of communism, such disrespect is heresy. To hopeful new democrats, the jigsaw jumble signifies freedom.rn
Vladimir Putin, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2001. At the Russian Academy of Science, Vladimir Putin stands surrounded by scientists and bodyguards. A puzzle to political pundits, Putin was raised Orthodox, but rose through the ranks of the KGB. Joining with reformers, he was handpicked by Yeltsin and elected to Russia's highest office.
Anastasia Vertynskaya, Moscow, Russia, 1987. Renowned actress Anastasia Vertynskaya ranked among the few Russians privileged to own a new car in the late 1980s. Her father, also a famous actor and director, received a death sentence at one time from Stalin but was later pardoned.
Hail to Sin, Moscow, Russia, 2007. 12:28 AM - Members of Russia's new elite shop till they drop and party till dawn. A group of young financial advisors has rented a stretch limo to binge on champagne while cruising the city.
Alushta, Crimea, 2010. The dances of old age are slower for two female patients at the Veterans Sanatorium in Alushta. This sanatorium is state owned and a vestige of an old Soviet system that many Crimean Russians remember nostalgically as representing better times.
Aimed to Please, Moscow, 2009. 10:19 PM - Breaking her neck - metaphorically - a stripper performs at the Bely Medved (Polar Bear), Moscow's first strip bar and most famous gentleman's club, which opened in 1995.
Cossack Picnic, Starocherkassk, Russia, 1997. After some lighthearted folk dancing, picnickers refuel with a robust meal - and lots of vodka.
Ice Fishing, Magnitogorsk, Russia, 2001. On winter weekends, men drill fishing holes in the thick ice of the Ural River to try their luck. Knowing that the river is badly polluted by waste from the Lenin Steel Works looming behind them, they often sell their catch to markets rather than consume it themselves.
Life After the Fall, Moscow, 1991. Like this Muscovite, many of Russia's elderly live in poorly maintained communal flats, where they are forced to share kitchens and bathrooms.
Ukrainian Coal Miner, Donetsk, Ukraine, 1992. After a day in the pits, a coal miner scrubs down. Though relatively well paid, miners face equipment breakdowns and gas explosions as they extract Ukraine's high-grade coal. According to estimates, every million tons costs the life of one miner.
Crossing the Urals, Russia, 1996. A couple who met aboard the Trans-Siberian savors a first-class moment together.
Heirs of Disaster, Vesnova, Belarus, 2005. The Children's Home in Vesnova was established after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and cares for abandoned and orphaned children with mental and physical disabilities.
Shadowed Lives, Minsk, Belarus, 2005. After the Chernobyl nuclear accident: Suffering from thyroid cancer, Oleg Shapiro, 54, and Dima Bogdanovich, 13, receive care at a thyroid hospital in Minsk, where surgery is performed daily. As a liquidator, Oleg was exposed to extreme levels of radiation. This was his third thyroid operation. Dima's mother claims that Chernobyl's nuclear fallout is responsible for her son's cancer, but Belarusian officials are often instructed to downplay the severity of the radiation.
Life Endures, Pripyat, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine, 2005. Trees grow in a school abandoned 19 years ago. Today, nature is slowly dismantling the city, thriving among the evacuated homes and buildings, in stark contrast to the fear-plagued lives of the people who survived the world's worst nuclear disaster to date.
Kiev, Ukraine, 1993. With years of sorrow, loss, depression, and fear etched into their faces, Chernobyl invalids line up to register in Kiev. Their u2018degree of victimhood' will determine the compensation awarded to them.
German-born photographer Gerd Ludwig is the recipient of the 2014 Dr. Erich-Salomon Award, the lifetime achievement award of the German Photographic Association. In previous years, publications and respected photographers like Paolo Pellegrin, Silvia Plachy, Sebastião Salgado, Martin Parr, Mary Ellen Mark and Robert Frank have received the honor for outstanding contributions to the field of photojournalism. The awards ceremony took place on September 20th at the Photokina trade fair in Cologne, Germany.
Photographer Gerd Ludwig has been working primarily for National Geographic Magazine since 1989. His focus on environmental issues and the socio-economic changes in the former Soviet Union resulted most recently in The Long Shadow of Chernobyl, his 20-year retrospective book of his work documenting the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date.
Set up in 1951, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) brings together leading and outstanding personalities in the photographic world for the promotion of photography and its artistic and scientific applications. Its activities predominantly concern the cultural interests of photography and related imaging media. These include both the conventional process of photography and its many different fields of application in art, science, education, journalism, industry and politics, as well as the non-conventional methods and new forms of imaging media.
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![Joseph Beuys #1 [Beuys Cradle and Hare], Near Kleve, Germany, 1978. Joseph Beuys with cradle and hare in Mehr near the Dassendonkshof.rn](/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/001_ARTBEU_0003-x540q80.jpg)
