Kaspiysk is a small town on the shore of Caspian sea in Dagestan, in the south of Russia. It was built in the 30s for the workers of a military plant that produced naval armament.
This plant is now called “Dagdiesel” and it is working to this day. Kaspiysk was designed by the architects from Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). Perfectly straight streets, monumental houses with arches and pillars. Now many of these buildings look very shabby and neglected. The main symbol of the town is workshop #8, а beautiful construction built for testing torpedoes in the middle of the sea in 3 kilometers from the shore. It is abandoned since 60s and in ruins now.
Despite all that, unlike many other industrial one-factory towns in Russia, Kaspiysk isn’t a ghost town. It’s growing pretty fast. New buildings and designs contrast with soviet architecture creating a weird and chaotic blend of styles. This contradiction is one of the cultural features of Dagestan. I captured this contrast between the old and the new. I spent part of my childhood in Kaspiysk, and this project is my attempt to understand how to keep the memories without dwelling in the past, how to fit the past into the new reality.
About Kamila Nicholls
Kamila Nicholls, documentary photographer from Makhatchkala, Dagestan. Lives in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She graduated from Institute of Journalism and Creative Writing and School of Modern Photography “Docdocdoc”. In her works Kamila focuses on architecture and urbanism, explores cities and captures the changes of urban environment.
