THE MORNING SAUNTERER

8:40. City centre. In a community where a fixed timetable is common, one of the main associations with morning is getting to work. A route scheduled in advance excludes any surprises, should they still occur, they are usually taken as hindrance on the way with the time limited.

8:49. Siberian Expo Centre. People queuing up to touch the icon of the Most Holy Mother of God. Admittance into the room is from 10 am.

7:12. The district of Rabocheye. Kristina, a school student. Getting up in the morning for her walk to school form another morning association that is successfully cultivated throughout life.

7:35. The district of Rabocheye. Sergey opens the window shutters of his house. For our city this is more than just a mechanical action: It is a whole ritual, a symbol of the beginning of a new day, letting the light in – to a private world of your own.

7:13. City centre. Morning is appreciated by photographers – before anything else, for its light. Landscape artists like to lie in wait for the glow of dawn at previously targeted places. Street photographers look for deeper shadows deforming a familiar space.

7:56. The district of Rabocheye. Light is nothing but a tool that helps to communicate the principal component of photography the best one can – something that keeps you hooked subconsciously, the state that targets the viewer at the level of their instincts.

8:00. The district of Rabocheye. Creation, maintenance and destruction are the three key processes in this world, whether we want it or not.

8:27. The district of Rabocheye. Sergey has come to fish at a lake on the outskirts of Rabocheye. Fishing for him is a meditative kind of activity that enables him to put thoughts together and set himself up for a new day. Morning is the best time for doing so.

7:15. Vtoroy Irkutsk (The Second Irkutsk district). The aircraft manufactгurer. About 11 000 employees go to their jobs every weekday from 6:30 to 7:30.

8:03. Akademgorodok (Science campus district). As a folk saying has it, a grayish morning promises a beautiful day.

7:15. Yubileynyi. Morning transportation is a pet peeve for many occupants of dormitory neighbourhoods.

7:31. Yubileynyi. Public transport in Irkutsk functions in a rather hectic manner. If you rely on the common rules without some personal experience in using a particular line at a particular time, you might simply not get to your destination.

6:17. “Fortuna” area. Amusement rides for children. You can look at them from the side and understand what they look like in the morning while children have not yet started playing. These are the bright and helter-skelter spots in the grey and ordered look of the city. Similar to children in many people’s lives.

8:20. Akademgorodok (Science campus district). Vladimir Aleksandrovich is 84. He is heading to work at the Institute of Energy Systems where he researches into the problems of Lake Baikal through the prism of energy management and amendments to the Water Code.

6:10. The embankment of the Angara. Any morning affair is in its own way a doorway into a new world, a way of transforming yourself and the surrounding reality.

6:48. Sergiev Posad. The temple of the Society for Krishna Consciousness. Krishnaists stick to quite rigid rules, and morning for them is of great significance. People at the temple start getting up at 3:30 in the morning, which is followed by numerous practices serving to purify the body and mind.

7:31. Krestovozdvizhenskaya church (The church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross). Artur Psarev, a bell-ringer: “It is impossible to toll a bell in the same way each day. It is an inimitable creative process closely connected to the surroundings. And it’s always different, especially in the morning. The fog, for instance, lies differently”.

7:05. Yubileynyi. Moring is a transition from one state to another, a way of transformation.

5:49. The embankment of the river Angara. People who go in for sports on the embankment in the morning exercise individually, without any arrangement. Still, together they form a whole community, a hobby club.

7:29. City centre. The city, like any other living organism, requires regular cleansing practices. Morning is the best time for those.

8:15. District 130. Morning is a way to take a look at familiar things from a new perspective. An opportunity to learn something new about the things around us, or perhaps notice them.

7:23. Glazkovo. Sometimes strange things happen to us. As if the usual settings of perceiving the social realm reset, and we are carried to some surreal world. Morning is great time for seeking such states of mind.

7:48. Sergiev Posad. The temple of Society for Krishna Consciousness. Kirtan is a dynamic method of working with one’s consciousness through collective mantra singing, dancing and glorifying gods. The ritual has its impact, and those who practice this talk about having a good mood at the very least.

7:15. City centre. Many perceive morning as the time meant for sleep, as well as getting ready speedily, hurrying to work and other things. There is little room for contemplation.

7:16 City centre. The main reason for discriminating against morning hours is lack of daytime and the domination of evenings in people’s lives as the only time for going about their business and actually living.

8:35. City centre. The Frederik Chopin Music College. Sometimes you get the feeling that for many people morning is not life itself but preparation for it.

9:05. Park of the Paris Commune. We might not manage to delight in morning hours because of a slightly shifted biological rhythm, the result of living in a city.

7:43. Central Market. It is enough sometimes just to get into a different space, a village, for example, and even the most urbanized person will fairly quickly adapt to the light pattern typical of the place.

7:53. Central Market. After the summer solstice, the light day becomes three minutes shorter every 24 hours. Everything around us is constantly changing, and indeed we are changing each second at the cellular level.

7:05. Yubileynyi. Moring is a transition from one state to another, a way of transformation.

7:55. Central market. “It’s a question of discipline, when you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend to your planet”. Little Prince, Antoine De Saint Exupery.

6:58. Vtoroy Irkutsk (The Second Irkutsk district). A special infrastructure is created in the morning on the square in front of the aircraft factory. Starting from half past five pastries, tights, stationery, cigarettes (for which people queue endlessly) and newspapers are sold here. You can find here anything one might need in the morning.

7:40. MIA Institute. Morning is also a portal from one social state of being into another, an opportunity to document the signs of this process.

9:47. Sverdlovskyi market. Daily queue waiting for the opening of one of the shops of a local pig farm. Soviet traditions are still in place when it comes to getting fresh meat delicacies. Besides, the stock is limited. Just three lorries per shop, they say.

8:21. Frederik Chopin Music College. Classes here start at nine, but many students arrive at seven. Morning here for them is a unique opportunity to practice in ideal conditions – having full access to musical instruments, in peace and silence.

6:57. Rabocheye district. A common assumption about mornings has once been formulated by the donkey Eeyore: “Good morning, Pooh. If it is a good morning, which I doubt”.

7:23. Yubileynyi. Mamur, a driver, rubs car polish onto the wheels of the bus he drives. “For them to look better”, he explains.

8:36. Former Park of Culture and Leisure. Once an unknown woman called me to arrange a photoshoot. I usually turn these down but decided to take this opportunity to shoot in the morning. Her answer made it clear how inappropriate my idea was: “A woman can’t look good in the morning”.

9:43. Train station area. Any person regardless of their physical and mental abilities can develop if they have a chance of communicating and doing real work. This is exactly the chance given at “Nadezhda”, the Centre for work with the disabled since childhood.

8:38. Academic bridge. Mist to me is always a feast. I have only found it several times during the summer in the city before, and was thrilled each time.Mist means changing the focus, cutting out the unnecessary, purity. This year I have been lucky: it has been sfoggy in the city for two weeks in a row.

8:43. Solnechnyi district. Praise morning in the daytime, and a day at its end. Folk wisdom.