Info

• 118 pages, 16.5 × 22 cm
  
• Languages: German, English
  
• ISBN 978-3-948174-25-5

Nominations / Awards
Silver German Photobook Award 2024/25
Winner Belfast Photo-Book Award 2025
Shortlist Lucie Photo Book Prize, Los Angeles 2025

Authors
Viktoria Morasch (Essay), Jon Cho-Polizzi (translation)

Design
Helena Melikov

How did a German village end up in Kyrgyzstan?

In late summer 1988, nine-year-old Irina Unruh and her family left Kyrgyzstan, which at that time was part of the Soviet Union. Two decades later, she returned to Telman for the first time. Her home village lies in the valley of the Chui River and is called Green Field by the older inhabitants.

Her documentary photographs tell stories of loss, origin, and the search for identity. Following the historical path of ethnic Germans from Russia, Unruh recounts her personal story of flight, expulsion, and homeland. Unruh's photographic journey hints at secrets kept hidden for generations, revealing memories that resonate loudly and others that are only faintly whispered. Her images depict expansive landscapes and intimate moments of family and friendship. "Where The Poplars Grow" combines contemporary history with fragments of a family album. Turning the pages reveals both collective and individual memories, as well as their gaps.

"Irina's pictures take us into a story from the past, then into the present, and back again. It is a story about identity, migration, immigration, and above all, family. The pictures, both from archives and the present day, contain many lives, many questions, much tenderness, and beauty."
The book's design faithfully echoes and amplifies the memories captured in the photographs, memories that have been lost. It is a poem, a memoir, a mystery. It is a book that reminds us that all too often, "The past is as unpredictable as the future."

– Sarah Leen (Co-Founder of the Visual Thinking Collective and former Director of Photography at National Geographic Magazine)