The story unfolds around Sarov, a closed administrative-territorial entity (ZATO) in the Nizhny Novgorod region where I grow up. For a long time, the settlement, which took its name from a swampy river, was associated with a site of Orthodox pilgrimage. age. Seraphim ("Flaming") of Sarov, one of the most venerated Orthodox saints, lived there as a hermit and became known for his miracles. He hand-fed a bear, healed gravely ill people, and spent a thousand days and a thousand nights praying on a stone. It is believed that he predicted his death by stating that "his end will be revealed by fire." Later, in the Soviet era, the heroic figure of the wonderworker was replaced by the new protagonist, the nuclear physicist.

In the late 1940s, the name Sarov disappeared from the maps of the Soviet Union. Remote enough from major population centers but at the same time located close to Moscow, hidden from prying eyes by dense forests, Sarov was chosen as the location for the unfolding Soviet nuclear program. This secret facility became one of the leading development centers of weapons of mass destruction and was known for its design bureau, KB-11.

Today Sarov stands at the intersection of religious mythology, military infrastructure, and state ideology. The Russian government and the Church use both Orthodoxy and nuclear technology in their propaganda as symbols of power and oppression. The boundary between documented history and constructed narrative becomes increasingly blurred. The forest, a central motif throughout the project, acts as both scene and metaphor. Referencing Pasternak’s poetry and the Strugatsky brothers' science fiction, it becomes a symbolic space of the unknown, where memory mutates, histories dissolve, and futures emerge in fragments.

My grandfather worked at KB-11. Like many other young scientists, he thought he would go to the city for a year or two but stayed there for the rest of his life. I never knew him, but inherited his archive of film negatives. Due to the strict secrecy surrounding his work, these photographs contain no direct documentation, depicting only family life and nature, yet the material condition of the negatives — scratches, burn marks, mold — carries the tension of the Cold War as insistently as any document.

By weaving together my grandfather's archive with my photographs based on facts, legends, and speculation, I investigate the shifting boundaries between fact and fiction, inviting the viewer to reflect on the cyclical nature of myth, power, and secrecy.