It's a long way from the lush pastures of western Russia to the dusty fields of Texas. And yet, for a while, people firmly believed in it.
A good ten years ago, at the beginning of 2010, when the word War the Russian meat company Miratorg began to build up a gigantic meat industry in the Bryansk region - from wheat cultivation to cattle breeding and meat processing. Everything on site. Everything under control.
The area offered ideal conditions: endless pastures, fertile farmland, abandoned industrial plants, cheap labor, geographical proximity to Europe, Asia and the Arab world - and above all: plenty of room for dreams.
What was to be created there was more than just a large-scale agricultural project. It was an attempt to adapt American cattle breeding - and to create a Russian cowboy culture of its own. The region was transformed into a mixture of cattle breeding and vision: 400,000 Angus cattle and more than 500 Quarter Horses were imported. Real American cowboys flew in, complete with horses, lassos and saddles. They were not only supposed to impart know-how - but also a mindset: Western horsemanship, animal care, ethics. Discipline, independence, freedom.
Former factory workers, technicians, cab drivers, teachers - anyone who didn't have a job was given a lasso and a horse and became part of this dream. Soon around 1,000 newly trained cowboys were riding across the fields. There was talk of team spirit and animal welfare. Of respect and efficiency. And again and again: of freedom.
At the beginning of 2018, I came across the New York Times to an article about this project. I was immediately fascinated - by the unconventionality of the idea, the aesthetics, the presumption. Always on my mind: the Marlboro pictures by Hannes Schmid.
In September 2019, during another photo project at the venerable Leningrad Center in Saint Petersburg, I spontaneously decided to travel on to Bryansk by train to take a series of portraits of Russian cowboys.
I was welcomed on site by a Miratorg employee who had traveled all the way from Moscow. Open, friendly, almost exuberant - as if he wanted to prove to me how modern, how western, how transparent Russia can be. And perhaps also: how superior. More sustainable, cheaper, more efficient. And he was probably not entirely wrong.
I spent the next few days driving from farm to farm. I didn't speak the language and nobody spoke English. Some tried to repeat Western phrases, heavily accented, charmingly awkward. They knew I was coming - a TV report about my work had been shown on Russian television shortly before. That helped. And after some initial skepticism, they thawed out. The cowboys showed me what they had created. They were proud - not just of themselves, but of what this project meant to them.
On the last day, they put me on a horse. Lasso, cattle, dusty poses - the whole western circus, just so I could feel like a cowboy for a moment. Maybe that was inevitable after a childhood with Karl May and the firm belief that freedom comes with spurs.
The portraits were taken where reality was dusty and smelled of horse manure and hay: in the stables where people worked during the day, drank in the evening and dreamed at night. A mobile photo studio, without a backdrop - just light, shadows, dust, sweat and pride. The protagonists themselves decided how they wanted to show and stage themselves.
The lighting was deliberately reduced. Classic Rembrandt light. The modeling of light and shadow was intended to lend the portraits depth and calm. It was not about effect, but about presence. The aim was not disguise, but truth - or at least an honest attempt at it. The attempt to capture in these faces something of a hope that was greater than the country in which it was born.
The results were impressive, sometimes bizarre. Men on horseback, with stoic expressions and lasso in hand. Women, tall, strong, with a firm voice. Others, petite, ambitious - determined to assert themselves in this man's world. The treatment of the animals: surprisingly gentle, almost friendly. The meat on the plate: tender, perfectly grilled, better than in many a Western steakhouse.
The animals lived on spacious pastures. Small herds - usually five to six cows, one bull. Sick cattle were separated, cared for and later reintegrated. The openness was almost defiant. The accusations from Europe - banned substances, lack of control - seemed like quotes from an outdated propaganda catalog.
And yet beneath the cheerful cowboy façade lay a foreboding. A word kept cropping up in our bumpy exchanges: War. It sounded like an echo from the past, out of place in a landscape that seemed so peaceful. In the fields: Cows. On the horizon: endless forests. In between: new roads, fenced, anonymous facilities. Military, but unnamed. Russia was preparing. The West did not listen.
A few years earlier, I had worked as part of another Russian war veterans project at the big military parade in Moscow - men from the Second World War, Afghanistan, Syria. I thought they were relics of a bygone era and wanted to create a historical portrait series. That was also a mistake.
Today, Bryansk is only 150 kilometers from the front. Some of the cowboys from back then are now in uniform. They probably didn't have a choice. They were conscripted. The leather vest gave way to the camouflage suit. The cowboy hat for the helmet.
What remains are images from an interim period. A series of portraits of Russian cowboys, somewhere between awakening and abyss, between rodeo romance and geopolitical reality.
The dream of living a piece of American freedom on Russian soil, of translating the Wild West to the East, seems to have been shattered, silently and without a happy ending.
