The Heidi Chronicles (Page 2)

The Heidi Chronicles (Page 2) McGill University

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Home > McGill News > 2001 > Spring 2001 > The Heidi Chronicles > The Heidi Chronicles (Page 2)

In the midst of a 1999 photo shoot with Vladimir Putin (then Prime Minister, now President), her subject expressed wonder at her high-tech equipment. She offered to let the former KGB-agent-turned-politician try it out and instructed him in its use. His bodyguards responded with alarm -- what was this foreign woman putting into the hands of their charge? -- but he stepped out of his official persona and started photographing Hollinger. "He actually wanted to know how it all worked. He was curious, and very meticulous."

Photo Russians as captured by Heidi Hollinger. Alexei, house painter

In a backhanded way, being a woman -- especially a young, attractive one -- may also have facilitated her rise. "Russian men don't take women seriously," Hollinger says. In a 1995 interview with the Gazette's Susan Schwartz, Hollinger explained, "I got away with a lot. I was able to get shots I wanted and press passes and all that. I think it's that I wasn't considered threatening to anyone, so they let me come to their parties and meet their kids."

Russian politicians have proven a very open and engaging set of subjects. "They're not worried about image. I guess they don't always realize what it could lead to," she observes. "But I don't think I've ever led anybody astray. I even asked Zhirinovski for permission to publish the photos," she says.

Photo Tatyana and Anna, beggars

Ah, the Zhirinovski photos. If any particular scraps of celluloid could be credited with propelling Hollinger into focus globally, it would be the ones with Vladimir Zhirinovski, the right-wing Russian nationalist, sprawled in his underwear on a divan. They were printed everywhere -- in newspapers across Russia, Europe and North America, in George and Esquire magazines, even shown on a British film, Politicians Unzipped. And despite having given his permission, Zhirinovski told Hollinger that when he was Russia's leader, he would break off diplomatic relations with Canada. But time has softened his resentment, and a letter bearing his signature forms part of the preface of Heidi Chez les Soviets, along with those of other prominent politicians from across the political spectrum.

Hollinger snapped the Zhirinovski photos in March 1994. By that summer, she had captured the cream of Russia's political elite except the man she calls "the big one": Mikhail Gorbachev. One day, a meeting with a Member of Parliament turned up the news that the man himself was going to be in the MP's office the next day. Call, Hollinger was told, and maybe you can meet him.


Photo Anna, Stalinist and WWII veteran

"The next day I went out rollerblading, because I figured it wouldn't happen," she says. Still, she dutifully called and was told to her surprise to come over. "How are you getting here?" she was asked. "I'm coming by rollerblade," she responded. She heard the MP turn from the phone and say 'Mikhail Sergeevich, she's coming by rollerblade.' As Hollinger recalls, "I said 'It won't be a problem -- I can take them off,' but he told me 'Heidi, whatever you do, do not take off your rollerblades.'"

So, at the appointed hour, Hollinger wheeled into the office. "There were five men seated around a table," she says, "and Gorbachev stands up, walks over to me and gives me a big hug. Every time I've seen him after that, he asks 'Where are your rollerblades?'"

Photo Alexander, policeman

Gorbachev has remained a friend, and contributed the preface to Les Russes/Russians, Hollinger's latest collection of photos, published in Russia and Canada in the fall of 2000. "I've tried to photograph different ends of society," Hollinger says. She literally pulled people into her studio from the street in order to shoot them. "One guy was doing road construction in front in my house. I said 'You have to come to my studio right now,' because if I waited I would lose him forever."

The first of her subjects to be immortalized for the collection, a house painter named Alexei whom she photographed in 1995, was someone she saw while out jogging one day. "I had been thinking about this project for a while, saw this painter in his ragged work clothes and decided I had to photograph him. He was walking in the direction of my studio, and I was telling him 'It will just take a minute,' but he kept saying no. When we got to the studio, I said 'You have to come up,' and he finally agreed -- but then he said 'Oh, I have a really nice suit at home . . . I should go home and shave.' I said 'No, you have to come as you are.'" For taking the brief detour up the stairs to her studio, he received $10 -- not much in Canada, but a healthy sum in Russia. Hollinger cannot say if the man knows that he has appeared in the book.

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