russia
HIV/AIDS in Russia
MOSCOW, RUSSIA 2002: Leningradsky Prospekt Prostitution point, Moscow. Approx 100 women stand in line and wait to be selected by clients who arrive mostly by car but also on foot. Many of the women are being forced into this work by armed gangs who have taken their papers. Pictured is Pictured is Sasha, a young girl who , whilst trying to get over her own addiction to heroin, works for a small organisation who try to enter the prostitution points and distribute condoms. The organisation, called RTL, is no longer in existence (Photo by David Gillanders)
russia
In the late 90’s I read an article in the Sunday Times about a city in Russia, Ekaterinburg, that had declared a zero tolerance stance on intravenous drug use. The approach seemed extreme – and the more I looked into it the more I became intrigued.
It also seemed that Russia had an almost underground problem with very fast rates of infection of HIV.
A few months later I got on a plane for the first of many trips to and from Russia and then Ukraine over the next decade or so.
Ultimately I ended up meeting and getting somewhat sucked into the lives of a group of homeless children in Ukraine – but looking through contact prints from yesteryear made me want to pull together an edit from my first couple of years work in Russia.