I have been involved with the ABCs
"Now and Then" project, which in turn was inspired by the Flickr group
"Looking into the Past", but I feel completely inadequate and in awe of the work of
Sergey Larenkov.
Russian photographer Sergey, was born and
grew in Leningrad, he sailed the seas and now works as a pilot, guiding ships
into the port of St Petersburg.
After collecting old World War II photographs taken in major
European cities, Sergey spent a year in 2010-11 traveling through Europe
re-photographing the same scenes as they look now. He then carefully combined
the old images with the new ones to create photographs that show two views of
the same location captured over 60 years apart.
Most of his
work is devoted to the World War II period. His most powerful personal impression
is a series of photos about the
siege of his hometown Leningrad. In addition, there is the defense
of Moscow, the liberation of Prague
and Vienna,
the storming
of Berlin, life in Paris,
the D-day landing, and the
streets of St. Petersburg, the capital
of the Russian Empire.
Wherever he travels, he is
trying to penetrate the layers of time.
Below are a selection from
his blog (some of the text was in
Russian, which I’ve used Babel Fish to translate)
 |
| Paris, 1940. Hitler and other leaders of the Reich at the Trocadero. |
 |
| German cavalry on Foch Ave, Paris. 1943/2010 |
German occupation of Paris. On July 14th 1940 the German army entered Paris.
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| D-Day. U.S. troops on Omaha Beach, 1943/2010 |
D-Day landing in Normandy on June 6th, 1943. The preserved German concrete pillbox to the right of the troops served to line up the 2 photos. (The opening scenes of "Saving Private Ryan" are of the landing on Omaha Beach).
 |
| The church of the Grand Palace. Peterhof 1943/2011 |
Petergof (Russian: Петерго́ф) or Peterhof (Dutch/German for
"Peter's Court"), known as Petrodvorets from 1944 to 1997, Peter the Great's Palace
is in
St Petersburg. In 1941 German troops captured & burned the palace. The occupying forces
destroyed much of the palace and the grounds, restoration work still continues.
 |
| Catherine Palace after the fire. January 24, 1944, Pushkin and Pavlovsk were liberated from
enemy occupation |
Pushkin is a municipal town
south of St. Petersburg, Catherine Palace was the summer residence of the Tsars. In their retreat after the siege of Leningrad, the German troops looted and destroyed the Palace, including the famous Amber Room.
 |
| Sobornaya St, Gatchina 1942/2011 |
On January 26, 1944 Gatchina (at that time "Red Guard City") was liberated from German occupation. Gatchina is a town and the administrative center of Gatchinsky District
of Leningrad, south of St. Petersburg, and home to another imperial palace.
 |
| Marshal Georgy Zukov on the steps of the Reichstag, with tourists |
Opened in 1894 the Reichstag housed the German parliament, after being severely damaged by fire in the storming of Berlin it fell into disuse, until the reunification of East & West Germany in 1990, after which it was restored and is now the Bundestag.
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| Wrecked 'Tiger' tank in Tiergarten Park, Berlin. 1945/2010 |
Tiergarten (German for Animal Garden) is a locality, in central Berlin (Germany), before German reunification, it was a part
of West Berlin. Believe that is the Reichstag building in the background.
 |
| Powder Tower, Prague. Population meets the tanks of the liberators |
The Gothic Powder Tower is the gate to the old Prague fortifications. The Czech resistance began the Prague Uprising, which ended with the Red Army liberating the city on May 9th 1945.
Sergey's photographs are a mixture of the monumental and the common-place and what makes his photographs more poignant is that people in the then and now pictures almost appear to be interacting - a modern day Parisian conversing with a Wehrmacht soldier.
Many more photographs are at Sergey's blog http://sergey-larenkov.livejournal.com/
