Dom

Master's Thesis

Ekaterina Frolova

 MPhD 23

Dom stands for “home” and “house” in Russian. This topic has always been sensitive in my family. My great grandfather’s home was destroyed twice because of dekulakization — the Soviet campaign of political repressions.

My family was forced to move twice; the first time was when I was three, after the 1998 Russian financial crisis. I moved myself in March 2022 after the government of my country launched a full-scale war against Ukraine and turned demanding peace into a crime.

The ongoing project explores different edges of feeling at home, losing home, and trying to find one.

I interviewed my friends from Russia and Ukraine, most of whom moved after the invasion, and captured them in their current apartments abroad with the objects that help create the ephemeral sensation of being at home.

In the end, the objects turned out to be just a thread that helped untangle something deeper and much more complex.

It is especially important for me to share the stories of my Ukrainian friends as nothing can be compared to losing one’s home, both mental and physical one, to air strikes, tanks and bombs.

VLADA  from Kherson,  captured in Limassol

“The first thing that comes to mind when I think about home is a vacuum cleaner. Everything is so unstable these days that at least at home I want to have stability. I want the apartment to be clean.”

DASHA  from Krivoy Rog,  captured in Barcelona

“When I think of home, I imagine mom cooking something in the kitchen. Dad watching TV. I come home, mom hugs me, and I smell freshly cooked soup. I sit down at the piano to play.
My mom and dad have already passed away. Mom died six years ago, and dad — just a week before the war started.”

SASHA  from Moscow,  captured in Tbilisi

“These days, my home is in Tbilisi, which I love wholeheartedly — and in the Georgian language, which helped me to rediscover my own freedom.”

IRA  from Ekaterinburg , captured in Limassol

“Now home is where I left my suitcase and where the bed I sleep in is, with no strings attached. But these earrings are a connection to my childhood home. My mom gave them to me when I was in elementary school, and I’ve been wearing them ever since. The more often I move, the more these earrings remind me of where my most beloved people live.”

OLEG  from Omsk , captured in Vienna

“These planes are a link to my childhood, home and my cherished dream — creating my own airline one day.”

MISHA  from Sysert , captured in Berlin

“For me, home is a complicated topic, because for most of my life, I lived by the principle ‘anywhere to get out of here’. Only recently, I started to realize that there exists a sense of home.”

VLADA  from Kherson,  captured in Limassol

DASHA  from Krivoy Rog,  captured in Barcelona

SASHA  from Moscow,  captured in Tbilisi

“These days, my home is in Tbilisi, which I love wholeheartedly — and in the Georgian language, which helped me to rediscover my own freedom.”

IRA  from Ekaterinburg , captured in Limassol

OLEG  from Omsk , captured in Vienna

“These planes are a link to my childhood, home and my cherished dream — creating my own airline one day.”

MISHA  from Sysert , captured in Berlin

LEV  from Vladivostok , captured in Pissouri

“Home is your habits. It’s hard to change your habits completely. That is why I lost my home in Russia. I don’t have a home now. Even though I used to.”

YULIA  from Ekaterinburg , captured in Limassol

“The feeling of home emerges once you allow yourself to keep things that serve no practical purpose. Those useless, yet such very useful things give you the feeling of significance, liveliness, and warmth.”

VERONIKA  from Odessa , captured in Barcelona

“When you separate from the family, home becomes internal. It is a place where you can find peace. For, when there is chaos and anxiety, it’s unsettling, you’re outside your home.”

OLYA  from Moscow , captured in Limassol

“Home is where you feel safe; where you’re surrounded with things that make your life easier and make you feel like you are standing on both feet, especially in the periods of turbulence. The magic wand is also about safety and protection; if it gets too hard, I can always call upon a patronus.”

ARINA  from Murom,  captured in Prague

“When I moved to Prague, I felt that the whole city was home. When I was flying from there to Moscow, it was giving me some nervous trembling, the feeling that in my home country something bad might happen to me.”

SERGEY  from Kostroma , captured in Tbilisi

“My little house has turned out to be surrounded by an alien atmosphere, ideology, ideas, and people. I never thought I would feel like a stranger among my own people, but it’s happened.”

KATIA  from Saint Petersburg , captured in Barcelona  , self-portrait

“Whenever I talk about home, what I mention a lot is the air, both outside and inside the apartment. I feel good when I can breathe in deeply.”