newyorker:


“In Afghanistan, everyone has war-related stories to tell,” the photographer Mikhail Galustov told me. “Every family has been hurt by the war in one way or another, and I wanted to find a language of photography that would be different from what I had done before.” In this portrait series, which Galustov began in 2009, he tells the story of war through Afghan faces.

Since he moved from his longtime base in Moscow to Kabul three years ago, Galustov’s work has focussed on NATO’s military intervention in Afghanistan, and on what might happen to the country as the international coalition drawns down. He isn’t surprised by recent reports that the U.S. has effectively abandoned what was once the cornerstone of American military strategy in Afghanistan—brokering a peace deal with the Taliban. “Afghans are very pessimistic about 2014,” he said. “The Taliban realize that victory is close, and they don’t need to negotiate. They don’t have to accept compromises. Afghanistan is falling into their hands anyway.”

Which leaves many Afghans desperate to flee before the foreign troops leave. “But most of Afghan society is extremely poor, and they won’t have a chance to leave,” he said. “My subjects are like that. They are ordinary people. They will stay and try to survive and live through the changes. Like they did before, like their parents and grandparents did too.”

Click-through for a slideshow of Mikhail Galustov’s Afghan Faces, and their stories: http://nyr.kr/VlWaAx