Kate Nolan

"They tell me I need a job, to be responsible, grow-up and be someone important. Here in Russia at 25 a woman is supposed to have a family, home, good job, everything sorted out. Sometimes I start to believe them and then I meet someone normal like you and it changes." - Irina
                                                                                                                                  
Neither is an exploration into the hearts of the young women of post-soviet Kaliningrad. Locked into dreams of a future that their homeland cannot recognize or fulfil, they look afar. They are searching for their identity while trapped under the weight of their history and the isolation from both their motherland and the new Europe.

This generation is the first to have been brought up in post-soviet Russia but it still effects their daily lives. It is ingrained in the Russian psyche from superstitions to the inability to waste any food. The women I have been living with have opened up their homes and minds to allow me an inside look into this link between place, identity and history.

Spending time with these young women really gives me a chance to explore this post-soviet culture and the roles of women within it. Russia is still a very patriarchal society but these women are surrounded by Europe and have seen something different which has made them more hopeful and open than the generation before them. Through the use of images and quotations I will explore the hopes, dreams and fears of these young women.