2005 Photo Contest, Daily Life, 2nd prize
Photographer

Jonas Bendiksen

Magnum Photos for Geo / Vanity Fair

01 January, 2004

In the unrecognized country of Trans-Dniester, which broke away from Moldova in the early 1990s, Lenin and his compatriots are still in high regard. The fall of the Soviet Union officially gave rise to 15 new countries, but political and ethnic disparities as well as arbitrary border delineation have lead to a group of unrecognized states. Some of these ghost republics have physical borders, others are the products of separatist dreams - but they remain cut off from the rest of the world, deprived of the certainties of the old Soviet order.

About the photographer

Jonas Bendiksen

Jonas Bendiksen (1977) began his career at the age of 19 as an intern at Magnum Photos’ London office, before leaving for Russia to pursue his own work as a photograph...

This image is collected in