Nataliia Yefimkina’s Garagenvolk explores a different way of life in the Russian far North—garage settlements. Set in the Kola Peninsula, beyond the Arctic Circle, the film follows the lives of men in a mining community who utilize garages for either hobbies or businesses. Garagenvolk creates a lively and unorthodox representation of life in the Russian far North, alive with humor, spirituality, and irreverence. [95 mins; documentary; Russian with English subtitles] A Q&A with Dr. Marya Rozanova-Smith will follow the screening.

Dr. Marya Rozanova-Smith is a professorial lecturer in the Elliott School of International Affairs and a research professor at the Department of Geography at the George Washington University. In addition to her work in academia, she participated in a wide range of social projects. She was the founder and chairperson of the Center for Civil, Social, Scientific, and Cultural Initiatives “STRATEGIA” and served as a Galina Starovoitova Fellow for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Kennan Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Rozanova-Smith has been teaching the Arctic Affairs course at GWU in the Elliott School of International Affairs since 2018. Her current research interests include Arctic governance, urban sustainability, gender empowerment, and the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Arctic.

The screening is free, but ticketed. A link to get tickets is available on the IU Cinema page.

This film is part of the Russian Studies Workshop’s Documentary Film Series for Fall 2022: Portraits in Permafrost: Cinema of the Russian Arctic. Click here for more information on the film series.